Lion and cub at garden centre

I left Carl's place reasonably early, anxious to get home and sort out a few things before the new carpet goes down tomorrow. That's a significant step in the whole renovation project, but side-by-side with the changes inside the house I also got people in for one last try at having a decent front garden rather than an embarrassing mess. This is my fourth effort. The first was mainly geared around bringing to life an arrangement of steps and raised beds which I'd been planning for a very, very long time. That involved some planting as well, but the idiot who did that had 'a thing' about membranes and insisted on using old newspaper under a covering of pebbles. Some of the plants did okay, but it was weeds that took over in the end.

Effort number two didn't turn out any better, though I have to admit that I don't remember much about it apart from still not having an anti-weed membrane and having lots of unwelcome weeds. Effort number three saw a membrane finally going down, but Stefan who did that managed to kill off some of my existing plants by rooting them up and leaving them exposed to intense sunshine for twenty-four hours which did some of them no good at all. He also had a different 'thing' about the membrane. What he did was dig down quite a bit and carefully loosen up the soil before re-filling the area he'd dug out, then laying the membrane some distance down from finished level and covering it with more soil and a covering of bark. Once again, the weeds had a field day.

Finally, around the beginning of the year one of the guys in my music group pulled no punches and came up with a garden criticism which really hit home. He'd been doing work on his house at the time and mentioned that he was pleased with the gardener he was using. He passed on contact details, Peter and Magdalena came round to have a look and 'sorted me out' over a couple of visits while other work was going on inside. This time the membrane was laid correctly and they came up with a selection of plants and shrubs which finally look as if they'll turn into a presentable garden.

Peter gave me basic advice about care and maintenance, a central part of which involved regular watering to help bed in the plants. I promised myself to be a good boy this time and tend for things assiduously. Unfortunately, doing the necessary watering has involved multiple journeys to and from the kitchen tap with a watering can. So today I headed over to the garden centre in Kinsealy to get myself a hose which will do away with all that nonsense. While going back to the car this piece if statuary caught my eye. It's not something I'd ever put in my own garden, but I rather liked the quirky way the daddy lion has his paw wrapped round his cub. It's a shame I didn't get the angle right, otherwise the cub and the way it's looking up at the lion might have registered properly. Ah well …

As it happened I didn't find a suitable hose here, but did find what I wanted on the way home afterwards. After the sun had set I did the necessary hooking-up, attached one end to the kitchen tap and ran the hose out into the garden. It took no time at all to water each of the 133 (!) plants/shrubs/trees individually, So I'm sorted. No excuse now. Like I said, I'm determined to make a go of this latest garden iteration. I have to, not least because I've spent a fortune over the years on the previous failed efforts and now on this one.