A Happy Gardeners is ...

 ... one with a plan!

But for the Under-gardener, it's always ominous as it usually entails work (digging, lifting plants, chopping down trees, etc, etc) and I fear that we are going to go into overdrive!

 

Summer has been very hard.  It must have started a month earlier than usual (we were watering in May!) and has gone on and on until yesterday.  The weather has finally broken for us and we've had our first rain since we can't remember when.  This prolonged period of extreme heat and drought is forcing the Head Gardener to reconsider the garden in all aspects ... what will grow in these fierce conditions and what we can keep going with lengthening periods of water restrictions.  So, there are lots of changes envisioned over the course of the Autumn and Winter but a number of these can't be started until this year's flowers have been cut down and/or dug up and moved.

(Hosepipe being used to mark the new shape of the bed ... more digging!!!)

 In the meantime, the Under Gardener is working on the new 'Shrubbery' which is being developed at the source of the Dry River.

I've edged all around the area we previously sprayed to kill off the grass (although you might find it difficult to see the difference between that and the rest of the grass which has just died naturally!")  The idea is to plant shrubs in the bed and then finally cover it with geotextile and wood chippings.

At the same time the Under Gardener has become dissatisfied with the Prairies.  So he has ordered a quantity of perennial meadow wildflower and other annual wildflower seeds.  These seeds will be sown in random cleared areas in the Prairies. 

So, as you can see, we don't understand what all this business of 'lockdown' is all about ... we're far too busy!

The rain doesn't just regenerate the plants ... it regenerates the gardeners as well.