Too many!

 I did another hour in the garden yesterday morning before it got too hot, there's still loads of clearing and weeding to do.  Those blimmin aquilegias - much as I love the colours, they're absolutely everywhere.  Last year we had I think about 2 dozen plants (none of which I'd put in), this year they've just gone berserk, there must be a 100 or more, they've completely swamped the beds.  I don't want that many or even more next year so have been pulling up loads before they set seed.  Whilst I love the flowers, I'm not so keen on their leaves - they're so big and untidy and cover up everything else.  Having pulled out a lot already, I can now see some of the perennials I put in last year which hopefully can now grow unimpeded by all the aquilegia leaves.  There's still loads of clearing to do, I'll be doing an hour every morning until it's done.  All that rain we had in....February, was it?....followed by lots of odd days of bright warm sunshine - and now a whole week's worth of hot sun to come - has made all the plants absolutely shoot up and spread out everywhere, it's almost jungle-like.  There's also a lot of the dreaded thuggy bindweed, luckily it is easy to pull out, I've been chucking big handfuls of it into the garden green bag (which is going to the tip, we're not composting it!).  Obviously I can't get all the bindweed roots out so more of it will grow, I'll just have to keep pulling bits out every time I go out there.

I've realised that it will be difficult to put up the trellis panels right now, as the flower beds in front of the fence are so crammed with plants - we'd either have to pull loads out or tread on them to get to the fence.  So now I have to decide whether to pull some of the plants up or cut them back to ground level, sacrificing them for this year, or put off doing the trellis panels until later in the year when plants are dying back.  But that means we sacrifice our privacy in the meantime.  I guess it depends on how loud and intrusive the building work next door will be....there's only been 1 or 2 blokes at a time doing some minor prep work inside the old barn thus far, work hasn't properly started yet, so it's not been much of a problem.  Decisions, decisions.  

I've temporarily given up with the navy cardigan, I'll finish it later.  I decided I want a short-sleeved white and lemon one for summer, so I've started on that.  Did 3 rows of the back yesterday and realised I'd miscounted the foundation chain, it's about 2" too short so the cardi won't be wide enough....frogging back here I come.  At least I realised quickly so not much to redo.  It's going to be an even hotter day today so once I've done my hour of garden work, I shall spend the rest of the day indoors, probably crocheting or reading, the heat saps my strength.  It's fairly cool in our bungalow, thank goodness.