New Year's Resolutions.

Now that the festivities are well and truly out of the way it is time to think about some serious gardening again. So what has the new year's resolutions turned up for the gardener? I for one do not usually make any, but this year is the exception.

First on the list is the scree beds. I have long promised to turn them into a full-blown rock garden, and this year by hook or by crook I am going to do it.

The wooden fence at both sides of the drive is coming to the end of its days and will have to go. In its place will go a small dry stone wall of Liscannor rock, a legally quarried rock from the Burren in west Clare? This wall can be no more than fourteen inches high but that will be sufficient for Lewesia and Ramondas and such things that I have in mind for it and indeed I have already built up some extra stock for that purpose.

The gravel path that runs through the scree beds will also be laid with the same stone in a crazy paving pattern with sufficient openings left for such plants as Erinus Alpinus and maybe the odd Sempervivum where space permits. The reason the gravel path has to go is because I cannot control the seedlings growing in it. Everything that produces seed in my garden not to mention the neighbours' gardens makes its way into the gravel path and germinates.

At this time it consists or Silver birch (Betula Pendula), Cordyline Australis, Sorbus Aria, Narcissus Bulbocodium and a mixture of alpine grass and the usual hairy bitter cress. Obviously none of these are supposed to be there, and the Narcissuss is the only one the above that I have in the garden.

The other problem that I have with the gravel path is after heavy rain; surface water lies for two or three hours on one section before eventually soaking away. I hope that raising the whole garden another 14 or 15 inches with the help of the retaining walls will solve this problem.

The other side which borders unto a Grisellinia hedge will have to be excavated to a depth of 18 inches and a paving tile placed on its edge to stop the roots of the hedge from invading the soil and starving the rock plants.