By heuchera or by creuchera

This is going to be my garden blog. Which may come as a great surprise to anyone who knows me, but yes, after years of ignoring or even hating gardens, I now actually have a garden. Or the promise of one (depending on whether we can finally buy the flat we're after or not). To a couple who've not done any gardening at all of any significance this is a bit of a shock. Whole lifestyle changes beckon just over the horizon depending on mortgages and deeds and a whole variety of stuff it's too dull to go into. I can almost smell the hedges and the grass. Or would if it weren't just so damn dry in spite of the torrential rain we've been having.

And actually we're getting rather excited. Focusing on the chance of having a real life garden for the first time in our 17-year-old marriage is taking our minds off other flat-buying worries. This weekend, we even found ourselves in a garden centre actually buying plants. Wonders will never cease. This is sort of okay as the flat vendors have said it's fine for us to tidy the garden as we live so near it anyway, they know us and the flat is unlived in at the moment.

We bought two heuchera: a Georgia Peach (the first photo) and a Midnight Rose (the second).

 We love the leaves and these were recommended by a friend (thanks, Robin). Yesterday we even planted them, just to see if we could as we've never planted anything before in our lives. K bought fertiliser and plant improver pellets and we spent several minutes digging the main bed with our brand-new fork and trowel (stainless steel, as that's what the books say is best). I then spent fruitless moments trying to get the dang things out of the pot, but luckily K has been paying more attention to the books than I have and apparently plants slide easily out of pots. Indeed they do. Hurrah! So Georgia Peach and Midnight Rose are now in the bed nearest the back fence and looking very new. Tonight I even watered them and wandered round the garden for a few moments feeling very Earth Goddess, but then had to go inside and sort out tea while K pruned. How I do love watching my husband work from the kitchen - it's pleasingly domestic.

Anyway, to the garden (should we get it, that is): it's the back section of the garden belonging to the block of flats we currently live in. The front section belongs to the ground floor flat. Our (or hopefully our) section of the garden is 16 of K's paces times 16. A perfect square. In it there's half a shed (straddling the dividing line and shared by the ground floor and 1st floor flats), a summer house (ie a shed with windows, really), two borders and two-and-a-half beds. Not to mention several trees, some stragglier than they ought to be. As the garden for a variety of reasons has been neglected over the past few months, the grass has been like a meadow for some time, but K went to it with his new pair of sheers at the weekend and it's tidier now, though still needs a good mow. We won't be doing that until (a) we've actually got the flat and (b) we can get hold of a mower, either petrol or with a hell of a long flex. And I do mean long. While K was sheering, I pruned the rosemary bushes, which were taking over their domains and some. Thank goodness for my new gardening gloves. I also pruned the buddleia on the back fence so we have created a rubbish pile behind the summer house. My what fun, and actually I did enjoy it.

I almost feel like a gardener. A very very new one. Tonight I stared at the heucheras which are still there and look okay. How do you tell if a plant is okay? Really it's a mystery but I am now worrying about them as if they were children, and I don't even like children. Most odd. Georgie and Rose I'm beginning to call them - even more worrying ...

In the meantime, we have wild and ridiculous plans - a water feature? A gazebo? A new summerhouse? A small gravel section? Stepping stones? New trees?? The plot thickens, and all the time I must remember that no it's not quite ours yet, and it's north facing but quite sloping so catches the sun a fair amount, but what is one supposed to do with that? Perhaps best to concentrate on getting the deeds in our hot little hands and keeping that grass - not to mention the rosemary and mint - under control. 

Anne Brooke