Pink is not my favourite colour in interior decorating or in clothing. I don’t think there is a single pink thing in the house. I remember buying one skirt with pink flowers and giving it to charity because I barely wore it. But in the garden, I like pink. It contrasts well against all the green. I like all other colours in the garden as well, to be honest.

I finished filling the new planting boxes with fresh soil today. Well, soil, at least, but maybe not so fresh… I’ve had three-quarters of a cubic metre bag of soil sitting next to the driveway for at least two years. But it’s not full of weed roots, so that counts as fresh in a way. Now I’m kind of stuck, though, because I need fertilizer and strawberry seedlings, and that requires a shopping trip, and I’m not doing that while I have a sore throat.

Speaking of weeds, the Japanese sedge in the slope is spreading almost like a weed. But it’s not doing that in front of the house, so it must really love conditions on the slope. It spreads vigorously in all directions and tends to smother other plants. I had hoped that some taller things like alliums would be able to grow through the sedge, but they don’t, really. I guess they get too little sun in their early days and die before they get tall. Or maybe they just don’t like the slope as much as the sedge does.

Martagon lilies and bleeding hearts do like this spot, though, which makes me happy. And luckily the sedge has superficial roots and is easy to yank out around them.