It was raining this morning so I didn't expect to get much time in the garden so it was a complete bonus for it to be dry and for the odd spell of sunshine this afternoon. My supermarket treat this week was a rather pretty red argyrathemum, not bad for £3. I will try and taking cuttings to overwinter as its a fairly tender perennial. I’m hoping the bees will appreciate it too.

After I’d planted this out I also planted out the spare lupin and a stray thyme cutting. The perennial sweetpea is pushing through next to the rowan tree so I’ve put in the obelisk there & tried to persuade the shoots to climb up it.

Ben wisely kept out of my way initially watching from the hedgehog house & then he was back to occupying his trough. It must be fairly warm as it catches sun almost all day.

I then spent an hour cutting out the dead wood of the gooseberry, leaving about 1/5th of the original gooseberry left compared to a year ago. Worryingly on some of the pruning I found what looks like coral spot - a fungal disease that attacks dead wood primarily but can spread to ‘living wood’ too. I shall have another pruning session in a day or two to try and make sure I’ve taken out all the dead wood I can see and to clear all the dead wood from around its base. I hope the coral spot is secondary.