We have maintained some better weather over the last week or so and we've had some stunning mornings.  I love bright mornings when there is a chill in the air - out in one sunless corner of the garden I could see my breath the other day - slightly too chilly!  I find it much easier to smile in the sunshine!

I decided it was time to buy my winter flowering plants and replant my tubs and hanging baskets.  The one outside my kitchen window is still very pretty, although I have had to remove 3 plants which were past it.

All my other geraniums are still doing well too so I decided to start with a bigger project.  At the front of the house we have 2 circles of earth surrounded by a lot of gravel.  At some stage in the history of the house someone had had a great love affair with gravel.  The back was 'gravel heaven' when we arrived.  'Low maintenance' I believe it is called.  Yuck!  It was a nightmare with 2 little boys.  I like green and trees so we dealt with that as soon as we could.  Removing tons of gravel is hard work and frighteningly expensive (we'd budgeted for the back in with the price of the house) so the front remains predominantly gravel.  The 'circles' are just a 6 inch 'fence' filled with soil, so start digging and you hit gravel very quickly. 

Since we arrived we've tried various plants with varying degrees of success.  The circles seem to attract an inordinate amount of snails and there is a very dirty neighbourhood cat that thinks they are its personal litter trays.  (Sigh!)

We had tried day lillies for the last couple of years which did look very pretty but now looked like this:

A few weeks ago we had removed all the lillies from the other circle and I decided these needed to go too.  I phoned my dad to borrow his 'peasant hoe'.  I don't know if that is the 'proper' name but it's what we call it.  It was given to my folks by a lovely lady in France who said the 'peasants' in France use it a lot.

It's a great tool - the hoe cutting through tough roots and the pick great in the gravel.

My dad decided to come help me.  (I was very glad because he is a fantastic gardner and I would have struggled to get all those roots out by myself!)

It took a while but the end result was this:

We buried a lot of tulip bulbs as we went so we should have a beautiful display of red, white and yellow in the spring.  A great improvement, I think you'll agree.  Next, the baskets and tubs......