The Moon-gate

We have been so fortunate these past few weeks. The weather has been absolutely fabulous. up here in Devon, the sun is shining but the wind is a bit strong, so I have not been out in my shorts just yet. I am spending the Easter at Tim's parents, and the past few days we have been trying to fill the ponds with aquatic plants and learning all about iris. I have always loved Iris, and whilst walking around Rosemoor garden for Tim's birthday (22nd April), I saw many of the irises are in bloom. That gave an idea to use irises in my pond. The problem is, it is not the season for irises to bloom. So it has been pretty frustrating to locate those that would be in flower for Malvern. The challenge is to find them in North Devon. Although this is a rather rural area, there are not many garden nurseries specialising in marginals over here. So at the moment, the idea is still just an idea...

Talking about ponds, during the second day of the build earlier this week,

both Tim and Ian had

managed to build the circular water feature

and the pond for my show garden. As you can see from the following photos, their work is rather commendable! I love the shapes of the circular slabs and I personally think they fit the garden.

From the

photos, you can also see how tricky it is to overlap two circular slabs. At the regions where the two circles meet, the slabs need to be cut into shape. Without a grinder-cutter, it was almost

impossible. Luckily, Paul Cantello, a fellow contestant at the next door garden had one. So he kindly lend it to Ian and Tim to cut the slabs into shape. The first circle (the one nearest to the Moongate) was first layout to see if they all fit. And then the lawn was taken off, the liner was laid before builder sand was placed on the liner. The slabs were then laid onto the sand. Once everything was in position, the slabs were "stopped" using ciment.

I think the end product looks great. The next steps would be to place all the wooden planters in place, screw them in and start planting I suppose.

More photos can be viewed here .