Before and after

Hi Sue, must be your lucky day, the tarmac, and the flowers, they look good together don't they, Derek.

serendipity indeed.

lovely colour combo.

Yes, nice colours..unusual for autumn.

True - but the Linaria's been at it full pelt for months. I'm guessing there will be a lot of seedlings to deal with next spring - this one was seeded from a much bigger clump that was planted out. I was warned, but it is so pretty...

That asphalt isn't as grim as it looks because the car will be on it most of the time - and it does look better than the photo...

You could always cover it with artificial grass. You may remember we did this to hide an unsightly concreted area. Didn't want the bother of re-concreting it.

Second thoughts: perhaps not for parking the car!

Anyway it looks tidy

Result - and gorgeous Nerines too!

That looks a whole lot neater Stera ... I can't get Linaria to grow in my garden. Daughter-in-law has it popping up everywhere so I lifted some a couple of years ago ... all gone now. :o(

Well some things dislike some places Shirley and there's not a lot you can do about it.

Eirlys -that's a thought! It did improve your concrete. But I think artificial grass would be a big problem there - the car would very soon mess it up considering our muddy lanes and there would be a horrible mess when I wash the car... We can't see it from the house and it solves the decaying concrete problem. And its good to cross something off the to do list!
Incidentally, how to you fasten it down at the edges?

It's nice when a job gets done, especially if somebody else has done it!
Very pretty last picture too.

It looks better like that :)

That Linaria has very violet flowers - the only ones I've ever seen have much paler blue ones, it's lovely.

What a colors!

Would you like some seeds Bamboo?

Ooh, yes please - not sure if it grows here, its not something I see very often, but I'll give it a shot. I'll PM you...

That looks a lot better and so much neater. Love the colour combo of the flowers

Lovely, we all need a good fairy at times. Lovely.

Steragram: On our concrete base we have just laid the grass down and weighted it with pots of plants. Can be rolled up and taken away!! Our Younger Son loves his. People passing by his garden, knowing what it was like before, (!) have commented and some have gone on to buy the same. Not for the purist, obviously.

Around the pond I recall staple-like fixers. Very secure anyway.

(I do like Nerines.)

That was a good fairy!
It looks so much better, we also had a similar area right at the front of our house, we had it brick paved but no fairies were involved.

Thanks GF. So sorry you didn't have any fairies to help...
Brick paving looks much nicer than either concrete or tarmac. Our drive is paved like that but its more work as moss and weeds grow in the joints even when it has been sealed as we are surrounded by big trees that drop drips and leaves etc with monotonous regularity...

Eirlys thanks for satisfying my curiosity re fixing the grass.
I'd sometimes wondered how it was done!
It doesn't really matter how it looks as it can't be seen either from the house or the road and its outside the garden proper. Its a lot better than rapidly decaying concrete and it discourages the grass from taking over the edges too. And at a pinch we could now with care get two cars there if we had to.

One very busy fairy there, Stera!

The combination the bright pink Nerines & the dark blue Linaria look stupendous together!

I had a similar thing happen on the balcony as well I planted out some salmon pink Busy Lizzies (Impatiens) & edged the troughs with self-sown Lobelias - before knowing what colour they would be - of a very dark blue & the result was fabulous all summer! ??

It sounds lovely! Your balcony was certainly spectacular this summer. I do like that colour combination and have rather a lot of pink - I don't care for it in clothes etc but love it in flowers. Its not so easy to keep blue going - I've got two young Jerusalem sage and some dwarf scabious and a couple of Echinops but they don't flower all summer. I hope to add cream and white but haven't had a lot of success so far. I did sow some very pale calendulas but the slugs ate all but one. Leucanthemum was totally devoured overnight and lasted less than 24 hours... Lobelia would do the trick but I'm tryng to manage with perennials to save work these days, lol..

I have found a couple of photos I uploaded a few months ago that give you an idea of what they looked like but I'll have to upload some more recent photos from my other computer as I don't have any on this one.

In the meanwhile, you can see one from my photos here:

http://www.growsonyou.com/photo/slideshow/331367-busy-lizzies-impatiens-lobelias-on-balcony-railings-on-1st-day-of-summer-20/member/balcony

Just seen it Balcony - very nice.