Over Ambitious

 I discovered, belatedly, that a friend of a friend was a garden designer in a previous life. I say belatedly because if I had known that she was a former professional garden designer there is no way I would have invited her here. Suddenly my amateur garden, which I am normally proud of, lost it's sparkle and I felt very inadequate.

Eventually I came to my senses and thought I was missing a trick if I didn't take advantage of an opportunity to get some expert advice for free. So in exchange for a cup of tea and a piece of cake Allison gave us her thoughts. She was very kind (although I said she could be as critical as she liked) and came up with the overall view that the front garden didn't flow very well from one area to another. Why was the area by the bank planted with bulbs in a straight line?  Of course the answer is historical and dates from the time that this area was to be an alley of Cherry trees which never materialised. She suggested that we moved the bulbs to create a more naturalistic look and leave this area of the grass a bit longer in the Summer. 

We both thought it was a great idea so we ordered more Muscari (grape hyacinths) and Thallia (white narcissus). We had no idea how many we would need so in the end we opted for a 1000 muscari, after all for an extra 10 euros you got another 500 bulbs!! As we were planting them today the bargain suddenly didn't seem so attractive, despite hours of planting the bulbs in the bag didn't seem to get any less.

A lot of people are going to have tubs of grape hyacinths for Christmas!!