another move for our poor plants

Not the most exciting photo you've ever seen ... but a significant one for us.

When we sold our house, we were fortunate because the new owner did not want to keep the bushes in our well-stocked small garden. Our new garden may not be ready to receive plants until the spring of 2012.

So, as we prepare to leave we needed somewhere to move the shrubs to temporarily. This is unfortunate for the poor plants because most of them were moved when we began our garden redesign in 2006. 'A change is as good as a rest', I tell them.

Here we have started our temporary nursery. The soil is very sandy and impoverished. In the 6m x 2m area cleared we found one worm! An indication of the job we have ahead of us! We have stacked the turves stripped from the surface in a pile behind the bed in what, we hope, will become a lovely source of much needed loam at some point in the future.

Fortunately, our neighbour keeps horses and so a thick mulch of well-rotted horse manure and leafmould will be added to enrich the soil, stimulate worm and invertebrate and microbial activity and to lock in moisture on this dry site.

Our plants can then be secure in their temporary home awaiting (what we hope will be) their final move.