Its been a month!

Yesterday was my 1 month anniversary in Stratford.

I spent it gardening and receiving rocks for the garden and thinking about the garden (when I should have been working!)

The previous owner had done some pretty good stuff so I have good bones to work with. the soil is a heavy clay so lots of amending to do - bought some compressed peat substitute that is renewable (love peat but it is not renewable and therefore not a good choice). You throw the compressed bricks into a bucket of water and come back a couple of hours later to a lovely soup that then gets shovelled (or poured since I used too much water) on the garden and gives instantly satisfying brown fibrey stuff.

Planted a Magnolia (stellata - the multy fingered kind), some Hakenachloa - Japanese Feather Grass I think is the common name - that might be wrong), a globe shaped yellow threadleaf false cypress and a spreading juniper that I bought last year and over wintered in a pot - and moved to Stratford.

Received a shipment of a ton of river rock to go around the base of the silver maple where there is nothing but moss and dandelions. I can get rid of the dandelions but the moss is pretty sparse so the rocks are a better option. Then I can put a couple of chairs there and have a lovely sitting spot in the shade. (have a look at the chairs - they are from recycled plastic and come in 15 colours - you have to look really really closely to tell they are made from plastic! - and they are made here in Stratford!)

Work is all set up - pick up starts today - just have to persuade some orders out of people!! Have some HandMaiden casbah coming today or tomorrow - maybe that will do the trick

Go smell some roses!