I was just out back and thinking that the garden's pretty much finished now: we just need to wait and see what comes up. I've had a bit of an 'oops' moment and added one new item, though.

Way back when, I was changing the rat cages and wondered what to do with the wood chips and poop and so on. "Natural compost," says I, tipping it onto the garden and digging it in.

Now, what do rats eat?

Yes, the young lady on the right... no, not unbaptised children... ah , the young man at the back... no, not everything that carries bubonic plague - that's rattus rattus; I'm talking about rattus norvegicus here... yes, you over there?

That's right - everything humans eat and... grain.

You guessed it - suddenly, one corner of the garden starting sprouting loads of green things. Thinking this was a good sign, I left them for a little while. Unfortunately, it turns out we had maize, corn or something similar growing all over the place! Nightmare. The dwarf broom suffered badly, but I got most of it out and things seem to be returning to normal now. D'oh!

So, what's it like now?

Well, here's the back wall which looks cleaner now. The rhododendrons are doing well, the Welsh poppy has flowered and even the columbine has recovered! A couple of the bulbs are coming up over on the right, but are still struggling as the soil is a bit clay-heavy over there. Our strawberry plant has also flowered now (never seen that before!).

You will notice the little house on the left: when I was in Paris, I grabbed some bits of wood out of the Ikea wardrobe in the old appartment and shipped them over here. Biscotte now has a little kennel that is - given my ability at DIY - surprisingly solid and neat. She loves it! Protection from the rain and wind, and close enough to the grass that she can chase birds. :D

The side wall has also come up nicely since being weeded out. I haven't changed this much, but it's good to see pink and mauve flowers coming out! The blackberry vine (or whatever one calls those) is growing nicely behind all the plants, so we're hoping to have some fruit there.

Out by the front wall, some bulbs are growing on the right section. The buttercups there need to be controlled, but are pretty nonetheless. The area under the tree on the far left is also much cleaner now: there was a TON of grass growing there that I got rid of.

The side hasn't changed much, but one flower has come out now - very pretty.

And there you have it!

OK, so I finally did it. After raining for a day and a half, the weather cleared for a little while this afternoon, so I took the opportunity to head into The Jungle and get those nettles out. Yes, the corner behind the garage.

In all my life, I have only ever seen stinging nettles of this size once: they were growing on a hill behind a psychiatric clinic (don't ask, OK?) and they scared the willies out of me. Here's a photo of one of the smaller ones with a pair of normal secateurs for sizing. The big ones were about five feet high and half an inch thick around the trunk. The roots were six-to-eight feet long (I kid you not) on those. *shudder*

I was stung twice for my efforts, one of which was deliberate (I had to know for sure they were nettles!), the other wasn't. On both wrists, of all places!

Still, the corner now looks significantly tidier and friendlier! Just compare it to the original!

Other good news is that the rhododendrons are growing like crazy. At last, something is growing.

Yesterday was sunny again. It stayed that way for a while, which gave me the chance to weed out the side of the back garden. Nothing dramatic, really, although I did pull out one of those annoying grassy things and chuck it up the back of the garden, to screen the neighbours' green-and-white construction a bit more.

Still, it's nicer over there now that the elder wotsits, nettles and crap are gone. There's still some down the back (where it can't be seen) that I have to get rid of - although I'm debating leaving the blackberries in there to grow - and the front garden to finish. The rhododendrons are growing like crazy, too: both already have three or more branches that have grown an inch or more since they were planted!

Unfortunately, in the afternoon, I made the mistake of dropping into a local charity shop with Psycho: there we saw two garden lounge chairs going cheap... so I spent the afternoon being a big, fat, lazy potato-man. Yes, I fell asleep in the sun. D'oh.

Another sunny morning today, although it's turned grey now and is trying to rain. Still, I was up early enough to do some more messing around in the garden.

Here's today's photo of the back wall. I spent this morning firstly popping to B&Q to get the little slidey door that was missing from the compost bin and also picked up a couple of rhododendrons which were on special offer (as they probably won't flower any more this year).

Since it was nice and sunny, I figured I'd get some bulbs planted in the front, then deal with the remaining stuff in the back. I've moved the bluebells from over in the middle and the right side (up by the tree line) down to the front left and shuffled the remaining grassies up top, where they now form a nice line.

There's the two rhododendrons over towards the rocky bit and I also bunged the rest of my anemone bulbs into this bit, forming a line in front of the grass. I doubt they'll sprout, so it makes no odds. :D

So the back wall now looks like this:

Left side: grassy stuff at the back, bluebells in front, hosta and welsh poppy on the right, strawberry on the left.

Centre: two hostas and the Japanese Maple between them, crocus down front (unstrangled now), two rhododendrons in the middle, two seda (one very small), two tall things at the back (no idea what either is).

Right side: two osteospermum at front, dwarf behind, bluebell recovering.

And I'm shattered!

Yesterday was nother sunny day (as is today!), so I was busy digging and weeding again. Ah, it's so relaxing, although my legs and arms feel like I was in a fight yesterday.

My opposite neighbour, who is a very friendly older chap (and his wife is just as friendly) told me that the garden has been neglected for ages, which is good news for all the things I'm changing - apparently no one's touched it. That would explain the mess.

The back wall gets clearer as I move out those grassy things: a big one in the middle is now turning into compost, but the others are being moved up to the tree-line slowly (three up by the right of the shrubs near the rocks). I dug out that HUGE nettle and the other uglies, too, although I missed one that I'll have to get today.

I have three or four more grassies to move, I think, and I'll pull the bluebells out from the middle right (in front of shrub) to put them over on the left with the others, in the gap made by the moved grassies. Something else can go where they were for a bit of colour - probably something red.

And yes, I know I have to get rid of that twig pile, too. Bleh.

Over by the front wall, I've weeded the left section. This was horrific, picky work: there's four or five groups of hyacinths (or onions..!!) in there, but apart from that it was all individual little weeds that had to be uprooted one by one. There's also a tree stump just under the surface, which will make planting a touch more difficult! I have some anemones and other bulbs which will be planted there today, in the hopes that it's not too late this year for them to sprout.

Still to do: weed the side in front, the side out back and control the rockery weeds a bit (although I'm going to leave them as they're not unattractive as they are). Also need to uproot two grassies hiding under the heebie in front that I noticed when pulling out of the drive in the evening to go to the pub!

So, the garden. Yes, well... here's the original layout (almost - I've done some stuff):

The front garden, street wall : I've already weeded out everything in front of the 'heebie' (someone said that was what it's called - the shrub thing) on the right and in the middle bit. There are pansies planted in front of said heebie (from seed) and I left some of the, uh, 'onions' (hyacinths, apparently, although I was convinced they were spring onions... doh!) in there, too - more will go back in once it stops raining! In the middle are some anemones and something else I don't recall right now, planted a few days ago. Maybe too late for this year, but we'll see. There's also a common frog living there somewhere!

The front garden, side : between us and our neighbour (who is apparently an old lady). I haven't touched this yet! The bed at the bottom was already clean and tidy - I've no idea what those are in it, but they're pretty. :)

The back garden, back wall - This is a mess. There's everything from nettles to overgrown shrubs to poppies to lilies to... you get the idea! The rocky corner I dug out, leaving just the bluebell there, as it was all weedy ground cover. There are bulbs planted there, but they don't seem to want to come up yet. The pile of twigs is all the dead wood from behind the two treeshrub things (plus some small ones that had rooted and were threatening to turn our neighbour's back garden into a forest!!). Note (and admire (or not)) the astounding handiwork of my bird table - MacGyvered together out of three bits of bamboo and an old dish-drying thingy so that Psycho could watch the birdies with her morning coffee (not to mention the cat!).

The back garden, side : again, between us and the lady next door. I don't intend to touch this, except to dig out weeds. It's fine and isn't overrun by those blasted grassy things. Say hello to Biscotte, the fluffly bundle of love.

The back garden, Jungle Corner : this is behind the garage and is horrid. There's a shrub strangling in there, plus all those weeds. I'll probably dig most of it out, leaving the shrub of course, and put something basic in there, just to keep things moving. It's completely out of sight, so it's no big deal.

And here's >Today's photo : the Back Wall shot. So what have I been doing?

Well, apart from paying too much for a compost bin (which is round behind the garage and pongs already!), I hefted out a whole TON of dead wood from behind the two shrubs (left) and that was hanging up in the climbing thingummy on the right. The latter, by the way, freaked me out completely: I'm seriously arachnophobic and the thing not only has branches that grow like spider legs, but they have HAIR on them.

It seems the owners pruned out an old tree, as there's a small stump by the right of the two shrubs, but the worst stuff was up in the branches where the spider and the shrub meet. We're talking half-inch thick branches here, that had been cut and left up there, presumably by someone who'd had quite enough of the jungle left by the previous tenant. I'd love to see a photo of the place after he left...

So now there's more space up in the branches between the trees at the back, which is nice. The climber on the right had also grown down the back, so I hefted the branches up to meet the shrub, thus forming a bit of a canopy, stopping it from invading the neighbours and hopefully ensuring it doesn't re-root over in the middle!

Next, I weeded out everything horrid between the two shrubs (a veritable carpet of ground-crawling green stuff!) and moved some of those grassy things from where they were choking the bluebells (in front of and between the two shrubs from this angle). They are now lined up between the trunks, forming a backdrop to the flowers in front that is actually very pleasant. They've left a big gap, as you can see, into which I have no idea what to put.

Over on the right, Psycho and I have just now planted in three new pretties that she picked out at B&Q today. The pinkish-purple and dark purple flowers are osteospermum (Sunny Mary, he says, reading off the card) which I doubt will last more than this summer, especially since that's what it says on the card with them... but the yellow one in the middle is Dwarf Broom (cytisus amber elf) which is a shrub and apparently very hardy. I'm hoping it spreads out and grows nicely.

On the list for the first non-rainy day coming is to move some more of the grassy things up to the tree line, giving a nice backdrop and also stopping them from asphyxiating everything else. I also have a metre-tall nettle to tackle, just to the right of the right-hand shrub at the back, there. Oh, joy.