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Yesterday I managed to get an hour in the garden and planted my tulips, which were beginning to sprout. I love tulips and every year I plant a new variety in two small formal beds we have outside the back of the barn. I am very taken with the idea of formal beds with a succession of bulbs and bedding plants through the year, surrounded by box hedges ( I visited Sissinghurst at an impressionable age!) and these two small beds are my rather basic formal garden. After the bulbs I only have one lot of summer-flowering plants, although it would be nice to follow these with something that will last through the winter, like pansies. This year I have put in Sweet Williams which are biennial and are happily overwintering to flower next summer. I have been spectacularly disorganised about the tulips, though, not only have I left it rather late to plant them, I also managed to throw away the label where I had writen the variety name, and now I can't remember what they are. Possibly "Ballade", as that is the name which comes into my head, and there is actually a tulip of that name. Oh well, it will be a surprise in the Spring to see what they look like!
This is one of the beds, just before planting.
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And here is my assistant gardener, Edwina, who always jumps out of the pen and comes to dig around, very unhelpfully, whenever I attempt any weeding or planting.
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