Creating a new bit of garden

Sycamore; soon to be gone

It is only a bit, but it's also a massive step forward as we've finally finished chopping down the sycamore.

I had cut it off about 3' from the ground, with the intention of asking M. Lorin to pull the stump out with his tractor.  He moved away, we kept forgetting to ask if Claude or Jean-Luc would do it, the stump sprouted new branches, I cut them off...

I'm a lumberjack?

Long story short: we bought some stump killer, and David cut the stump down to the ground and we've put stump killer on it to (hopefully) kill it [I'm a bit sceptical; have seen sycamore stumps before].  I know we run the risk of honey fungus or some other root-attacking nasty, but we have some of that in the ground anyway, and we just needed to deal with something, so we're currently in the "keeping fingers crossed" phase.

With the tree finally out, then we could address the 'trench' - there was a sort of dip in the ground that I wanted filled before planting that part of the garden...

But the piles of sand and gravel had to be moved before that could happen...

Ground levelled; pathway laid out

Thankfully, David is an absolute honey, and piled them up higher, and moved the edge nearest the dip away from where I wanted to level it out.

Again, David was a huge help in levelling out the ground; we managed to get it less undulating.  Flat would have been a challenge too far [and given the various slopes at that end of the garden, dead-level may have looked odd; that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!].

Weed-suppressing membrane in place

We laid some weed-suppressing membrane down, and I put down some grit to make a path.  I've got the intention of doing all the other paths the same way, but we just ran out of time; it's amazing how it slips away.

There were a few plants we'd found on our travels, so they were installed and watered in, and all the bulbs were planted, too, so there will be something to look forward to next year.

Covering it with gravel

David planted bulbs in the rest of the garden, whilst I spread bark on the new bit of garden, until I ran out of bark.

The last time I was out at the house, I'd put bark on the area nearest the road [where previously I'd run out of bark] so most of the garden now has a layer of chippings.  That stuff is brilliant!  It really does help to keep the weeds down, and stops shoes getting muddy when we have to tread on the garden after it's rained.

Plants, bulbs, and bark = new bit of garden!

Obviously, I need another load of bark, but topping up areas where it has thinned out is less of a challenge than covering an area with existing plants that hasn't been covered previously.  I'm hoping that I can lay my hands on some more bark and top up as necessary when the perennials have died down, and before the bulbs send up their leaves.

Hasn't happened any year yet, but a person can hope!

Looking from the road [new bark in foreground]