New plants and a waterbutt!

Hi Emma your garden looks very nice and what a lot of bargains you got love the colour of that heuchera:)

i love your shady corner and that wonderful clematis; i would be interested to know how you get on with the bark chippings cos i was wondering about using them myself.
and then benjy ~ what a lovely dog.

Lovely lovely garden and Benji is great, love his colour.

It looks wonderful, bet you enjoyed placing all your new treats from the gdn centre. Your clematis looks beautiful, and all I disagree on is that it's a shame you don't like the poor ceanothus. The bees visit it a lot don't they?

Lovely garden and absolutely gorgeous dog :O)

Benji is lovely isn't he, and I'm pleased to hear he's well now :o) Your garden is comng along too. It will be nice for your clematis to have a trellis to grow on.

Benji is gorgeous!
I love your pink begonia, what a bargain, and your clematis .... very similar to one of mine.
What a pity that you don't like ceanothus. Mine certainly earns it's keep, creating a wonderful blue wall for the patio in Spring and a dark green background for the rest of the year as well as attracting loads of bees to the garden.

Yes shame about not wanting to keep the ceanothus its lovely with the clem going through it.
Glad Benji has got over his tic problem.

Thanks for your very kind comments everyone. Yes, I have to agree, Benji is lovely (but I'm very biased :D).

It's not that I don't like ceanothus but this one is really on it's last legs, I should have pointed that out in my post. It was planted when the house was built in the mid-90s so it really has seen better days. I read they are quite short-lived, don't know if that's true or not.

I see you have another doggie behind the begonia! I bet he keeps still for Photos. You have done well to get your stamp on the garden in such a short time. Yes Ceanothus is not a long lived shrub. When they go off the boil they go quickly. Clematis likes it though.I never got one to flower like that.....it looks marvellous and so does Benji.....glad he is well now.

Your clematis is absolutely lovely Emma, so is the begonia and you`ve made the garden look very attractive, I have a blue hosta and unlike one of my others it never gets nibbled...
Waterbutt definitely a good buy, as are your lovely plants, its great when one can get a few bargains...
I tried bark and woodchip in part of our dogrun but it was a mistake with the stuff I used, it was ok at first but in the winter the colour came out on the dogs feet and made a terrible mess on the yard and footpath, it took weeks of scrubbing with bleach and jeyes liquid to remove the stain, I liked it as well so was very annoyed..
Benji is a lovely lad and looks cute in both pics, pleased he is ok now.........

Forgot to say, my son has one looks just like your Benji, same colouring, beautiful eyes and big floppy ears,lol...

the clematis looks great and so does benji, glad he is better, i have a little dog called benji.... the bark looks lovely i agree it smells good and is good for stopping muddy paw from dog and 2 cats.....

That clematis turned out to be a beauty didn't it?! Lovely plants you got too, the begonia is such a sweet colour, so pretty! I have bark too, no dog, but it's fantastic at keeping the weeds down! Only thing is, the blackbirds love to fling it about, They seem to think, I've buried something valuable under it and they're desperate to find it...even if it's only a worm! Lol!
P.S. I'm glad Benjy's feeling better, he's looking beautiful!

My ceanothus died, but we left it's main trunk in because the birds like to perch there and I like to watch them.

Lots more lovely comments :)

Dorjac - yes that little doggy keeps still all the time lol. He also does a great job of lighting the garden at night :)

Lincslass - Thanks for your comments, hopefully the bark will be ok but I will remember what you say and keep an eye on it. I don't think Benji will walk on it unless his toys get thrown on there by the hubby (naughty man).

Cazcat - another Benji lol, they're everywhere. When we were in the vets a couple of weeks ago there was a Corgi called Benji, there was some confusion when the vet called "Benji please"!

Libet - yes the clematis is quite something, I'd love to know it's proper name but I haven't been able to find another one like it. It's obviously happy being there. I'll keep an eye on the blackbirds, we get loads of birds in our garden, lots of pigeons!

Stickitoffee - I shall have to take a pic of the ceanothus, there's also another rather ugly plant next to it that looks as if it's dying. It smells like old mens smelly feet too... I'll have to find some replacements for them :)

oooh that doesnt sound nice! i dont think i want to know what they smell like. i must get a water butt, its such a good idea.

You've got me all intrigued now about the smelly-feet-plant. Such an inviting name!
Yes I thought c's were short-lived too, so if yours dates from the 90s it must be doing well...

weeding - you're quite welcome to come and have a sniff if you really want to... :P

I'm tempted! The plot thickens.
Mind you, I've just had a google, and if you're at one end of the county it's a drive of 48 miles for me - hm, do-able if I pack a banana and corn-beef sarnie. If right at the other, nr Glossop, it's 107!!

Banana and corned beef? Never tried that one weeding!