Its that time of year for making alterations in the garden. The weather is mild, there has been a bit of rain (although the ground is still very dry) and there are few customers to serve. All through the growing season I have been mentally making notes of plants that aren’t growing well, or those that I’ve got tired of, some need moving, some need adding.  Some perennials have spread too much and need reducing and there is the small matter of digging up the self-sown seedlings which are in the wrong place. I remove barrows full of verbena each year.

The heavy clay soil needs plenty of compost adding to it which has improved it over the years but there are places where its almost impossible to get a spade in.

I made a start two days ago when my plan was simply to dig up any stray pulmonarias and move them to an area which needs more ground cover. I got distracted by the Achillea The Pearl which was steadily creeping into other plants. It took a while to dig out all the roots but now there is a reduced patch of the plant. While I was doing that I was conscious of the Armeria maritima ‘Alba’ nearby which, although is a good ground cover plant, was looking scruffy. Feeling in a ruthless frame of mind I dug the whole lot out, dug the hard clay as best I could and added compost. The next part was to dig up the untidy clumps of Sisyrinchium ‘Quaint and Queer’ split them up and replant them where the thrift had been. Eventually the pulmonarias did get transplanted.