ANOTHER FINE MESS I'VE GOT ME INTO!

This is the lower garden down by the Wendy House looking up from the decking. The rail is by a footbridge and then a boardwalk meanders through the swamp. (Well, boggy area.) On the left are irises, white valerian and candelabra primulas, in the foreground alchemilla and beyond the rail is a pond, not that you can see it for growth at present. Another fine messy job I've got me into!
Not only the pond needs digging out but the various streams, the hedge ditch, the other pond and so on.
The land down there is so water logged that the amelanchiers have gone autumnal, (red leaves in the centre right), and then shed the lot.
The hedge to the left runs the length of the garden and is regrowing well after having been laid.
Other plants in this area include water cress (bane of my back), both plain and variegated flag iris, marsh thistle, ragged robin, assorted loosetrife, comfrey, pendulous sedge (beware it seeds itself everywhere and is a thug), hostas and euphorbia characias ssp Wufenii amongst others.
The pond is WILD! This means it is left to itself for most of the year and then brought back into the fold before it gets too out of hand. (As it is at the moment.) It is full of water snails, caddisfly larvae in their little houses, boatmen, pondskaters, damsel flies etc.

Now to grub - these are the last of the broad beans - disappointing but with the weather and lack of bees to fertilise them, not too bad. Carrots are coming on and one turnip left, a little netting has protected the Brussels Sprouts from the worst of the cabbage white butterfly caterpillars.

The wild bank is truly wild and the long grasses backlit in the evening are a delight.

Now I hate to throw anything away - most can be used somewhere, composted or, as a last result, go on the November bonfire. (The ashes then go on the blackcurrants as a good source of potash.)

As a poor artist I had a lot of rather rubbishy paintings on hardboard which had been waiting for some time to be useful. When I built a lean-to woodshed a year or so back I needed a wall of some sort and, Voila! or Eureka! or whatever - a hammer and a nail or two and my paintings were of some use after all.

As we are having a short burst of summer it is time to return to the garden whilst I can. No excuses are left - the sun is shining, or at least it was before I came in to write this blog - now it is cloudy again.

R is in her writing house tapping at her keyboard - time for the waiter to bring her tea and a biccy. (Moi!)
Will I get a tip?
Probably something like - 'It is better if you don't let the teabag soak in the milk before you add the boiling water.'