An ongoing project... and pets...

Any walk with our family tends to involve the collection of smooth river pebbles - they're all over our area, thanks to glacial deposits from the last Ice Age, I presume. You can see how they're used in local architecture in the photo at the bottom of this earlier post. This bucket came home with us yesterday, having left the house with a few sticklebacks in it which needed returning to the stream!Yes, Raja, your ball is in there too!There is a reason for all this collecting. Our garden was very overgrown when we moved in three years ago, but a bit of tapping and excavation discovered two areas of paving under the grass. This one is near the patio, but has such huge gaps between the stones that it's not actually much use as a terrace. It becomes horrendously overgrown with gaps that size!Last year I saw a very pleasant Spanish terrace in a magazine, which had smooth river pebbles between its stones, something like this:

Obviously a bit of weeding has to go on, but if you go over it once a week in the growing season it comes to look like this, which I think is quite pleasing:Here's the technique:And here's my helper!The little terrace is in front of the kitchen window, which used to have a large bush obscuring everything. Last year Ben and I hauled the bush out (it has been successfully transplanted!) and planted a shady garden, which is also fairly successful.We've put lots of stumps around the little garden, to encourage garden-friendly insects and to provide some height for the new plants.
This rather bizarre central feature is to protect my plants from the cat, Chanel! He has taken badly to the introduction of the dog into the house, and generally comes to the kitchen window to demand entry in a dog-free room. So many of my plants were squashed on his various routes to the window sill that I made him this runway. It seems to be working...When I was in Edinburgh Ben and his mum bought me this geranium for the shady garden. The flowers are going to be purple, I think - I can't wait! And finally, this is the delightful result of our mild snowfall this January.And that was enough snow to close Son 1's College!

I'm still looking for one more person for 'Pay it Forward' (see yesterday's first post). Don't be shy - even if you've never left a comment here before, I'd love to get to know you and send you some goodies! Check below and see if you'd like to get involved!