It's gone. At last, the trampoline has gone. Actually, to be scrupulously honest, it's stacked up in the side passage, but it is out of the garden. I'd been looking forward to this moment for ages, but idiot that I am, I felt quite sad once I'd dismantled it, and had to have a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit to cheer myself up.
I think it was something to do with saying goodbye to my children's childhood. My son is now 19 and my daughter is 15 next Monday, so they're past the age of wanting to run around with their friends in the garden. But it still gave me a bit of a pang to think of all those birthday parties with gleeful little faces bouncing up and down.
Pull yourself together, woman! Onwards and upwards: what is going in its place? Well, there will be a shady seating area of some kind. My daughter wants three low benches built out of decking, with one of those brazier things, so she and her friends can sit around on summer evenings gossiping.
Sounds good, apart from the decking benches, which would require woodworking skills above and beyond my capabilities. Still, I might be able to persuade the timber yard to cut the decking to length for me. And I might be able to buy some oak sleepers or cubes to use as supports. And I might be able to persuade my brother-in-law to come round and help (he has a chainsaw). Hmmm.
The new seating area. Most of the things poking up in this border are in pots, waiting for me to redo the whole thing. The spiky plants (the only things in the ground) are Libertia grandiflora. The broom is 'Zeelandia' and it is going. I just couldn't resist letting it have one last flower this spring - I've already cut it back by half. Brooms are fairly short-lived and this one has got too leggy (to help hide the trampoline), so I don't feel too guilty. I might get another one though, perhaps a white one.
I also thought you might like to see this. It's Bergenia 'Ballawley' which is quite a big bergenia, so looks very tropical in the summer. As you can see, the leaves are as high as the 'Geranium' narcissi. It's in a fairly shady spot.I planted this a couple of years ago, and wasn't very impressed at first. It didn't flower, and in winter, when the leaves are supposed to "flush purple", it went the most disgusting shade of puce. In fact, it was more puke than puce. But this year, the new leaves have got their act together fairly early and the flowers - the first-ever - have lived up to the description of "bright magenta".
