Steps and walls over Easter weekend

The garden is coming life for spring. New seedlings sprout in unexpected places to dishearten the weeder. 

Bluebells are peeping through the burst of green leaves, ready to open and stand proud. I hope some are English bluebells, most are Spanish and need removing so this week will has been a huge task, alongside removing some of the vast quantity of grape hyacinth. These are early bloomers, with lovely blue flowers, but have spread all over the place and need a bit of control with where they appear from. It's taken a few days to sort!

The small patch of grass that's been annoying to cut is turning into steps. Pip has worked really hard to create the wooden frame, which is all in situ now - I just didn't get a photo! Next steps (haha) are to put weed membrane down, then add gravel. 

I had the job of cutting the wood for the step uprights. 

While Pip was working on the steps, I got on with rebuilding the wall. Many of the higher layer slabs were tilted - they'd sunk backwards because they weren't supported under the grass. Also, lots of weeds had grown through the gaps. Mostly creeping wild strawberries, dandelions, aubretia and wood avens. I've left the aubretia and removed as much of the rest that I could.

Now the wall is level we can use the pile of loose river stones that had just been dumped on the grass meant to decorate the lower slabs with - it will hopefully look quite good, and use up a lot of stones too.