For weeks now I’ve been itching to get going in my garden. However, winter is still here and there wasn’t much, I could do.

As storm Thomas was predicted for the last few days (wasn’t all that wild here in Berlin, it turned out, but it was very wet and windy), I settled to buy myself a gardening magazine. Big mistake!

That glossy thing (March edition) was full with hints and stuff to do in a garden in March, along with beautiful pictures of gardens, I’d love to have. And countless flowers. Alongside with planting scemes and layouts. In fact, a magazine full with everything I am dreaming about.

One idea really caught my attention. It was about garden paths and how to design them. Complete, with different types of plaster and other coverings, step by step instructions on how to build them and design their fringes.

Looking out at my little dirt tracks formed by wear during the last couple of years, I set my mind on creating my own, beautiful garden path. Looking at how best to do it with the the choice of material shown in the magazine, copying the names of all the filler plants that would grow between the cracks and on the fringes and so on.

Yesterday I had some time at hand, so I ventured out to my favourite DIY store, to check, what material they have on offer. And sure enough, there was this newly installed, big area for garden design set up, giving all sorts of samples for walls, fringes, ground covers, terrace design and construction, fences and the like. Of every thinkable make and price. I browsed everything and got excited with a nice form of stones for a garden wall, made of slate. I kept musing over which colour to choose, calculating, how much of the material I would need and what that would cost me. Untill I realised, I don’t need a wall at all.

So I turned back to stone slabs and path filling material. But could not really find anything, I liked all that much. So I asked the man on service, if he had a catalogue on the topic. He apologized, they weren’t delivered yet, but I could check their web site – everything is shown there already. I thanked him and turned to leave.

As it happens, the store also has a huge garden center, so being on site, of course I couldn’t resist to check it out. Another hour later and one hundred Euros short, I found myself back home unloading my car. Packs of seeds, flower pulps, plant potatoes, onions, garlic, early blooming spring plants – you name it, I bought it. Something must have come loose with me in that shop.

So now I had no choice – at least the early bloomers needed planting. But where? As per usual, I completely forgot, that every space available is already covered with plants, save for my vegetable patches. But wasn’t I just out to check out constructional changes? As I had not found a final solution for my paths, I decided to make another design change. Doing away with that small grass strip to the walkway, thus enlarging my flower garden, adding another couple of square meters, making room for my latest acquisitions.

My spade was put to use, all sods taken out and put underneath some shrubs growing nearby, the soil dug up, bettered with horn shavings and good soil from my vegetable patches. Then I dug up some of the bigger perennials, that needed parting. And three low rose bushes, that have been in the garden, when I moved there. Then they were on the fringes, but with all my alterations, they now needed moving. So I put them all together in one corner of what is the fringe now. Now I had the space for my new plants to also be planted.

When I was done in the evening, I was all pleased. I had accomplished not a thing of what I had originally planned to do, but I was out in my garden at long last. When I came back in, I had trouble moving at all. My back of course shot to shit again. But hey! That’s what it takes, right? Then the weather report came on. Predicting frost for the night. Storm Thomas sucking icy air from the North Sea and Iceland, spewing it all over my fresh and tender plantlings. My, oh my! I wonder how many of them will survive…