Every garden needs a water feature!

And this garden is no exception! But no ornate multi-level creation with overflows and little peeing boys for us! No, our first water feature is to be the most simple possible. It's an old set of concrete laundry tubs, conveniently left at the side of the front verandah by the previous owners of the house. At one stage, I thought that the tubs would be handy as containers for herbs on the other side of the house, close to the kitchen door. Then I tried to move them and decided they were just fine where they were!

I have bought myself an iris which loves to grow in water and some goo to waterproof the tubs so that the water doesn't seep away, but my first job is to put an opening between the two tubs so that the pump will circulate all the water. Still water means mosquito wrigglers and we don't want that. I'm still undecided if I'll buy some goldfish or will I hope that the frogs in the garden come and live in the pond? I'd much rather a frogpond than a fishpond! Speaking of frogs, I took this shot a week or so ago, when I joyously went out on the verandah to watch the rain falling for the first time in ages. This little green frog was also looking up at the sky from a Leander bloom, he was obviously enjoying the shower!

I'm sure there would be people who would think that putting a hole in the dividing wall between the two tubs is not a good thing to do. It's certainly not an easy thing to do - the concrete is tough as and is calling for some industrial strength gadgets to do the job. I have just had my first go at using an angle grinder - maybe my angle wasn't right and that's why I didn't do a whole lot of grinding! I have decided that the new hammer drill I gave Mike for his birthday a month ago (with precisely this job in mind!) is perhaps a better option, but I will need to go and buy some super strong drill bits to do the job.

In the meantime, a coffee and a walk around the garden seemed to be a good plan. Yesterday, I planted out some seedlings I grew from seed collected, some white aquilegia, some blue salvia and some echinacea went in around the roses and in the birdbath garden in front of the kitchen window.

Here is David Austin Summer Song. What a colour! This is in the garden bed on the western end of the house, now known as the Snake garden! It is planted with blue salvia, yellow irises, a yellow daylily and some pink aquilegia that have come up from seed from somewhere else in the garden. Next to Summer Song is a clump of old fashioned Tiger Lilies, the old orange ones with little black spots. Now if I can just get them both flowering at the same time, I will be more than tickled pink! Or orange!

And I discovered on my stroll around the garden that my Siberian Iris is starting to flower. It is one of the plants that I had in our previous garden which made the journey in the removalist truck. It didn't flower last summer, I guess it was cross at being moved, but I have three buds opening at the minute, all of them the most beautiful blue. What a joy!