These boots were made for planting

Flowers are growing quite happily in our garden (so are the weeds, but that's another story) and the bumble bees are really loving the lavenders I've bought, which is lovely.

There's been something I've wanted to try for a while; putting flowers in boots. My mother-in-law, who (as the daughter of a gardener) has a lovely one in her garden that I've been quite envious of, so when I noticed that SBB had left a pair of his old work boots in the garden over the winter, I knew my chance had come. I casually asked him one day what he was planning on doing with them.
"Nothing," he answered, "I thought you'd like to plant something in them."
"Really?" I asked, delighted. "How could you tell?"
He smiled. "Because I know you."
It's true, he does, and the fact that he thought of me and purposely kept them for me is lovely.

We were in B&Q, looking at plants. I was looking for something that would be okay in the pot and I'd been looking for a few minutes before I remembered I know NOTHING about plants. Nothing. SBB suggested just talking to his mum and asking her advice. I agreed and then I saw them. Geraniums. We shared a look and identical smiles. You might be thinking that we're a bit crazy so at this point I'm going to mention that we're fans of The Dubliners. In order to get the reference (and the joke) check out Seven Drunken Nights, by The Dubliners.
It had to be done.

Patio progress - part 3: The final push

SBB has been a real trooper, working on the patio, setting up jobs as part of his new business, constructing a new fence for the driveway, digging out the Mother of All Roots, digging a test hole to look at the foundations, breaking up a concrete path and pouring a new one... Like I said, a real trooper.

He's finished the patio and I'm absolutely thrilled with it.

Laying the slabs

Finished!

First steps on the (dry) patio

A couple of days after SBB had finished the patio we both got a bit of a bee in our bonnet about the state of the path (see huge ugly blue tarp etc in above photo) so we had a tidy up and it was like a huge weight was lifted off our shoulders. Then SBB decided to fill in the empty triangle with gravel. It's starting to feel a lot more finished now (just ignore the horrible red paint stains on the wall, I need to power-wash those off).

So, there it is. Did you see the flower pots? I went for some plain terracotta pots in the end. I didn't want to draw attention away from the feature wall (which is the real star of the show) plus, they were also two for £9. Bargain.

But.

Did you notice the deliberate mistake? You may remember that in my part 2 update I mentioned the pattern I was planning (lavender, forget-me-not, herb pot, forget-me-not, lavender). Slight problem with that, which I only realised when I put the plants in the four terracotta pots I'd bought. I have three forget-me-not plants - you can see the third one attempting to hide behind the loose stones on top of the wall. Oops. I may have to have a rethink.

Patio progress: Part 2

 

It's finished! We're calling it the 'rustic' look.

Just kidding.

After much discussion SBB and I discarded our idea to add a square and a motif as we previously planned. I've bowed entirely to SBB's expertise for the patio design. I think we're both still a bit gutted about our herringbone pattern idea we had way back in August last year. The problem that we have, now that won't be laying bricks, is that the square isn't the right size for whole patio slabs to sit neatly - we'll have to put in some cut ones. We had thought that the cobbles/motif would alleviate the problem but after much measuring SBB decided that, in fact, it would only make it worse.

We nipped down to B&Q and looked at what they had to offer and then browsed the internet to see if we could find any better, for cheaper. We couldn't so one afternoon we went back to B&Q and bought some slabs which, by a happy mistake with barcodes were cheaper than we'd thought.

Now that the patio is coming together my thoughts have started to turn towards plants and plant holders/pots.

We went to a nursery to pick out some plants - I think it's called Forest View but I call it Narnia because it just goes on and on. SBB laughed a little when I first told him about it but when we went to get the plants he said, "Ah, I completely see why you call it Narnia now"

(If you go there, let me know if you see what I mean!)

I'm thinking of four or five pots to go along the wall - an evergreen (the lavender), a colourful pot (the Forget-me-nots and something else) a herb pot, then a colourful pot and another evergreen. The problem is, I'm not sure which pots to get. SBB isn't keen on anything too stylised or modern so would prefer some nice terracotta pots but I'm worried that the area may be a little too 'orange'

It's not entirely clear in this photo but the slabs are a sort of creamy yellow, so with that in mind here are the options I've spotted so far:

Dunelm Mill

Dunelm Mill

B&Q

B&Q

B&Q

B&Q

B&Q

B&Q

B&Q

B&Q

So. Those are the choices. Any ideas?