Happy days: flowerbeds reviewed

(PS - I'm sorry this is so long. I will keep things shorter in future.)

Plant of the moment - a poppy. No idea which. A gift from our friend Deirdre about 5 years ago. My kind of plant - corker of a flower and lovely foliage too.

Before I go any further, I want to add a link to a wonderful post on one of my favourite blogs.

Now, where was I. I've been busy for a few days because my mother came to visit. It went off very well and she is now safely home again. She liked the garden, although she did comment on how many borders there are... but she liked the way the garden can't all be seen at once and is there to be walked round.

This made me think it was about time I posted some pictures of how each border looks at the moment. I decided to take some pictures after today's jobs which were mainly watering, because I thought the plants must be dry in the wind, and planting out my black poppies. These are the "big guns" of my little arsenal of annuals, and from saved seed too, so I hope they settle in happily.

Anyway, here are all the planted areas, snapped just as they were this afternoon without any prettification for the camera:

First off, the worst bit. This is the current state of the veg area. So if I turn up making nasty carpy remarks about your immaculate and fecund plots, you'll know why. I'm sorry. All it needs is more work really but I've lost about 6 rows of things to weed competition so I find it tough at times. I'll get there.



Then the front. This bit I'm pleased with:



The other side is less successful just now. The small rhododendron has a disease at the roots and needs to come out. The dicentra near it is also doing badly. I'm trying not to worry about this area. I might put a hydrangea in to give some belated symmetry with the other half of the front. There's far too little space but that's never stopped me yet!



Then the main part of the garden. Here's a bad picture of the herb bed - sorry, the light was bad for it but I want to include every area in this posting:



Next up. This has a couple of gaps but I don't want to fill them up now, I want to wait until I know what I want for some colour a bit later.



A quick close-up of the brunnera, one of my favourite plants:



The bog area, in need of weeding as ever:



Into the square garden, and left of the bench. I love sedums; I'm looking forward to seeing the pale one here once it's settled in. There are Milkmaid nasturtiums and black poppies in here too; we shall see...



and the right side. More black poppies and some foolishly-placed golden rod. I can't remember what colour the hardy geranium is so finding out will be fun.



I've shown this bed recently:



This is the area adjoining it. Some goodies to come in here!



I suspect that's more than enough, so I'll take a break there and post the rest tomorrow.