Rhododendron in flower
Isn’t that a wonderful colour? I think I’m going to get more of it. I spent the morning planting hostas under the camellias. When they arrived this morning I panicked. Ten plants, all unlabelled. The only thing I know is it’s these 5 x 2:
Nothing I can do really except to wait until the leaves come out and see how the colour combinations work- and then knowing myself I’ll probably feel the need to move them into colour coordinated groupings.
And here’s some more of the garden- the colours are starting to change the feel of the place:
My Mazamet 
Are you sure they’re not magic bean stalks? I’ve seen this scenario play out dozens of times and it never ends well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL!
LikeLike
And btw, hostas are sold as bare root plants, not seeds 😛
LikeLike
Could you plant the hostas in pots until the leaves come out and then transplant them where you want?
Your garden is lovely.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I thought of that… then I felt reeeeaaaally lazy so I decided just planted them in the ground and if I’m lucky I won’t have to move too many of them 😀
LikeLike
Looks great.
LikeLiked by 2 people
We’re getting there little by little. By this autumn I think I’ll have been able to get all the plants I want into their spots. After that it’s just a matter of editing and waiting for plants to mature.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Keep an eye out for slugs when your hostas produce leaves.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Will do. Does putting sand around them work for that?
LikeLike
I’ve had some decent luck with a pie plate full of beer. It drowns the little buggers but they do leave the hostas alone. We used to have a heck of a population of really huge spotted slugs and now we don’t.
LikeLike
I tried that once with snails. It worked but I ran out of beer. 😦
LikeLike
If it is sharp…I tried the sand from our islands in the river and it was too soft, so had to rob some from the pile left over by the builders.
Coarse salt will work too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wish I had quite as much dedication to my garden as to keep it like that. Things get planted out and painted, but never quite so careful about colours or weeding. I suppose “rustic” is a look of sorts…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks 🙂 As long as it’s not raining I spend at least half an hour outside every day, usually more, so it sort of happens naturally. No one single big effort but an accumulation of small ones.
I love rustic, but as the architecture here is quite formal a more manicured look works better.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s the answer, then! I only realistically can work on the garden a day, maybe two a week. And however much I clean it down on Wednesday, by Friday more weeds are sneaking out.
I should probably make a little time in the mornings to get on top of them when I’m running the dog. But I’m sure I will find an excuse…
I like the 1920s look: a bit crazy in combination, but still neat and making an effort to be modern. If I could quit work for a week or hire a gardener for a few hours a morning, then that is what it would look like.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There are a couple of very easy things you can do to keep weeds down. Next time you go to the supermarket get house cleaning vinegar (usually 8% to 12% vinegar). It’s approx. 1€ per litre. Much cheaper than food vinegar. Dissolve a tablespoon of salt into that and put it in a spray bottle. Whenever you walk through the garden take it with you. It’s a natural, precision and ecological weed killer. You just spray the weed and leave it in place (when it’s sunny) and 3 to 5 days later it’s dessicated/dead. Don’t get the spray on plants you want to keep.
Now for plant beds: go to the nearest cardboard recycling bin and help yourself to a few cardboard boxes with no plastic tape on them. You can cut them to fit around the base of plants, then wet it and set it into place. The darkness won’t let weeds come up. If you want to make it more attractive just cover the cardboard with mulch. Straw looks nice, so do dried pine needles which you can find (free) in many parks (or maybe even in your own garden?) Anyway straw is very cheap at agricultural stores. You end up with something that looks like this:
LikeLiked by 3 people
That’s much neater. And a lovely solution for the flower beds. ^^ I’ll have to wait for the potatoes and parsnips to bed in to try anything around them, though, so they’ll have to stay wild a little longer.
LikeLike
I forgot to ask, what’s your climate? Some things work better than others depending on that. Are you in the UK?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, Midlands near the Peak District, clay soil, long frost season, middling temperatures, as high as 35 in Summer, but well below freezing in Winter.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love the colours, Pinky. Purple is a great favourite of mine. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was obviously a favourite of the late owner and I ended up falling in love with the colour after seeing how well she’d used it here in the garden. The house is so austere because of the brownstone colour, purple is the only thing that really breaks that effectively.
LikeLike
Purple and white, and purple and yellow can look stunning when there’s lots of purple and just spots of vibrant sunshine colours. Wish my garden grew things as well as yours.
LikeLike
…but I bet you don’t wish for as much rain as we have!!!
LikeLike
You’d be WRONG! My water bill is outrageous over summer, and that’s just to keep the fruit trees and roses alive. Grass goes brown and footsteps crackle from the dry leaves. I’d kill for more rain. 🙂
LikeLike
Sounds like southern Spain 😀 Trust me, each has its price. There we spent a fortune on water but little on heating. Here we spend very little on water, but a substantial amount on heating. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find that perfect place on the globe where the weather is always ideal? 😀
LikeLike
“I ended up falling in love with the colour” – barring ‘Prostitute’s Panties Purple’ I take it?
Hahahahaha.
What a beautiful garden Mr Pink. (Esme finds hostas disturbing but has no idea why, perhaps she was spooked by one as a child)
– esme loving camellias upon the Cloud
LikeLiked by 1 person
-grin- If you ever find that perfect place, I’m next in line! And thanks for that tip about the vinegar and salt. Is that 1 tablespoon salt : 1 litre vinegar?
LikeLiked by 1 person
If you get the 12% vinegar, you don’t even need the salt- but with with the 8% the salt speeds up the process, and yes 1 tablespoon p/ litre is enough 🙂
LikeLike
Excellent! Thank you. I’ll get the stronger vinegar if possible as I worry about adding salt to soil that is pretty bad already.
LikeLike
Off topic but I need to throw it in somewhere.
What about window screens?
I assume since you live in a very French traditional house you don’t have them. Would you consider putting some in or not?
This comes to mind as soon you will be working on the outside structure, repainting etc. What is your thoughts on screens?
LikeLike
They’re a necessity here but I vaguely remember seeing some screens that you can pull down like a blind. Very expensive though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We had those in Spain. They were built into the window frames.
LikeLike
Aaaaah! I’d actually love to have them instead of what we do have. Oddly enough, we also had next to no flies or mosquitoes this last summer. Very strange as we normally have almost plagues of them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hope last year wasn’t a fluke here… but I haven’t seen screens anywhere, so I imagine not. My guess is the drastic temperature changes aren’t ideal for flies and mosquitoes. But I have no real evidence for that theory 😀
LikeLike
We had them in Spain, but they’re really not necessary here. There were a few flies last summer, but nowhere near enough to warrant screens. And up to now no mosquitoes at all 🙂
LikeLike