This is what happens to a pretty garden when you leave it unattended for more than ten months! It turns into a wild overgrown jungle! I don't even want to venture into the centre part where the plants are directly in the ground as opposed to in pots!
The lemon trees are full to bursting with lemons as is the mixed lemon and orange tree....the black blobs you see on the ground are rotten fruit that have fallen during the time we've been away. The place is full of stinging nettles and as for this succulent, well it has taken over about one third of the patio, it is actually growing through the a chair that we were using to prop the laundry room door open when the tumble dryer was on! And has completely smothered our large pot of cacti on the left of the photo just behind the post of the pergola!
Where you see the spade standing in the centre of the photo below, just to the left of it is a 'mound', that is actually a raised bed which is the centre of the succulent! It has also gone up the step of the laundry room and has tried to push itself under the door....thankfully it wasn't able to do so!
Fortunately though, we don't appear to have lost anything except the potted plants, everything that is in the ground has done well....more than well to be honest! It just goes to show what a little bit of rain, a mild winter and a lot of sunshine will do!
Well you know what I'll be doing for the next couple of weeks!!
