Gardening and dogs

Amanshe is in Reading, Berkshire, UK and is shared by Mandy Primmer, her partner Andrew Southgate and their Welsh Springers, Flicka and Faye.

The garden may be small and triangular in shape but it is big enough for Mandy to learn about gardening.  It is also owned entirely by the cat who allows the humans and dogs to enjoy it occasionally.  The grass does suffer from having two bitches using it.  Mandy is trying dogs rocks in their water but they haven’t solved  the problem entirely.

Another problem that Mandy has is that Flicka likes to dig, particularly in the hole where the washing line belongs.  Mandy and I have been working on this.  After some discussion, we realised that from Flicka’s point of view, the garden was her space rather than Mandy’s, and so she saw no reason why she shouldn’t do what she wanted to in it.  Mandy put a lot of effort into reminding Flicka that the garden actually belonged to the humans in the household and that Flicka had to respect that, just as she would in the house.    This work paid dividends and the digging was much reduced.  However, circumstances were such that Mandy did not continue this philosophy and Flicka returned to her old ways.  Mandy now realises that once a habit is established, it is much harder to break so she is re-doubling her efforts.

One of the many challenges of the garden is that the property is rented this means that most of the shrubs that are planted in the garden are included in the inventory and can not be removed therefore Mandy has to use a lot of pots and plant around these shrubs.

Due to the cold damp start there are not as many runner beans as there normally are. Onions, Cabbages and Kurly Kale are growing in pots around the garden the potatoes have already been and gone, and tomatoes are growing away in the greenhouse.

This year has been a little strange in that it is August and Mandy’s Sweet Peas are still flowering.  Underneath the Sweet Peas and near the compost bin is a Eco clean dog loo, Mandy is not sure it was worth all the hard work of digging it in, but it does help with the overall situation.

Outside the back door is a pot full of herbs which the family uses a lot.  On the other side is a clematis which only grows to a max of 4ft.  Mandy is growing a couple rose buses  with some success and trying a hanging basket for the first time which hasn’t been a success.

Mandy doesn’t know the Latin names for most of the plants in the garden, and sometimes she doesn’t even know their  common names.  She just knows what she likes and when a plant combination works, it looks awesome.