Partly in order to house some of the earth from the pond excavations, I dismantled some of the bug hotel and rebuilt it as a planter. About halfway done it opened up into empty space I’d left, which meant much less work than expected. I poured in a few buckets of the dry earth and rebuilt the top, making it look much less lopsided. The mint will be back in the spring and meanwhile there’s lots of detritus on the ground for things to hide in.

I carried on digging, clearing a few more plants. The gladioli are getting ever closer to flowering, so they’re staying for the moment at least. They’d be quite pretty, but possibly a pain to work around.

I started digging down and deposited buckets and buckets of soil at the base of the helianthus, the mint and the elder. More will go at the back of the boundaries, but some weeding needs to be done first. I also carried a few buckets out to fill holes in the car park. More could help build up the low side of the track too, though it could do with being damper.