Cheery Rhododendron

Not much in the way of knitting has been going on today due to this one new purchase - my lovely pink Rhododendron. It's officially called 'Cheers' I think, but it's now stuck in my head as Cheery - as it is bright and cheery! I had only gone into the garden centre to get some cat friendly slug pellets and this was calling to me. None of the rest were in flower and this was bursting with colour. And a glorious pink! I love how the unopened buds are a deep magenta but the flowers themselves are a delicate lighter pink with those lovely deep pink spots inside.

And just why has this lovely plant stopped me from knitting, you ask? Because I have to clear a space to put it! It grows to 1.8m x 1.8m and needs to be in a more protected space. It was originally going to be a lovely evergreen windbreak to stop all my other plants dying on one side of my garden but the label says it won't like that at all. But now, I have to bring my garden excavation plans forward a little:-)

This year, we've decided that we will still grow vegetables and tomatoes but not in the designated vegetable patch. The slugs were getting fat and the soil wasn't that good for growing, so this year we are having a vegetable and herb pot garden!! This leaves the old veggie patch empty and we have dithered between paving it, planting it with a few plants but we don't really have enough to fill it straight away, or maybe even making a zen garden for me to relax in. I thought that would be the cheapest option - gravel, rake and a few stones - ummm!

But now I've impulsively bought my cheery rhododendron, it needs a home so back to being a raised flower bed it is. Mind you, it will take pride of place:-) and I can 'borrow' some plants to pad it out a bit from elsewhere in the garden - she says optimistically.

So we are now knackered from clearing the surface, digging out all the accumulated weeds and laying out the bed with bricks. But too tired for any planting. So, after a day of hard graft and no knitting, cheery is still in it's pot but a lot closer to a new home.