Putting the plants in.

I had potted all of my free plants or had wrapped their roots in a strong plastic bag and filled that with compost if they were too big for pots. I also had my garden centre plants. I wandered around and arranged everything on the bed. At last I was satisfied and my brother and I planted them! We dug a hole for each one and lined it with compost. Then we put the plant in and finally more compost. Each one was gently firmed in (or in the case of the trees, we mixed earth in as well for a bit more support and stood on it to press it in) and watered. There should be no problem with the compost drying out in my garden, but you may need to mix the compost with soil first.


A lot of the positioning was guess work as I don't know much about many of my plants yet but I tried not to put them too close together. If they don't look happy I will move them. I'll probably look them up in a book at some point too. And of course, I will put all the information I find on this blog as I write about each plant!


When my brother had gone home (thanks for all the hard work by the way!) I put wooden edging around the bed. This stops the lawn from creeping back over and I think defines the bed nicely. I also covered all the bare soil with bark chippings (from the garden centre). This keeps the weeds down as it's dark under there. If the weeds do sneak a leaf through, I think the bark chippings make them easier to spot too! Bark chippings are good in other ways too. They reduce (or in my garden eliminate) the need for weed killer. They will also rot down gradually, giving nutrients to the plants and improving the quality and texture of the soil. In my garden, insects and spiders seem to like living in them too! I bet it's nice and warm in there for them.


I can't wait for all the plants to grow!