Wisteria Vandalism!

In an effort to discourage our bird population from vandalising our Wisteria again this year, we moved all the feeders to the end of the house and put them on the terrace - away from the Wisteria.  It's been a complete disaster and they have decimated it from one end to the other!  They have eaten all the plump and obviously delicious flower buds and stripped it bare.  The only remaining flower buds on 50' of Wisteria are shown below.  Can anyone out there come up with a practical suggestion for next year?  

Wood Preservation

Elsewhere in the garden it's been preservation and tidying up! Most of the bare wood has had a coat of creosote including the barn and the Herb Garden fence - it's a good job I like the smell of it!!  I think I could have been a professional wood preserver in a previous life! Again, my collection of boards comes in useful for catching drips.  You might notice the Dogwood stems awaiting re-use as plant supports.

Potato Planting

Most importantly, potatoes (Arran Pilots) have now been planted along with a couple of rows of spring onions, a row of Greyhound cabbages and half a row of Pak Choi.  Having been sown 2 weeks ago, the broad beans are up and looking pretty good for now!  There's the odd miss but c'est la vie. A fellow garden opener kindly gave me some pink flowering beans so I have a row of Aquadulce and another of Val Mill's specials!

 It was just too wet for potato planting on the traditional Good Friday so instead, it was good Wednesday!  Following an interesting discussion: this year it was a toss up between planting potatoes individually (Genever style) or planting them in traditional rows.  In the end, tradition got the better of me!  This is the one job when my stocker comes in so useful as it's the perfect tool for the job and also for earthing up.  So, as usual, it was 3 feet between the rows and the potatoes a foot apart - my foot, that is!  I'm lucky enough to have acquired a mottley collection of boards and they are such a boon when it comes to preventing soil compaction.  The few remaining potatoes were planted in grow bags in the greenhouse and hopefully provide an early meal.  The rows will be earthed up as soon as leaves begin to establish above soil level.  In the meantime, best use was made of the rather natty Genever plant labels!

Easter Gardening!

Heavier than it looks!

Mini bonfire.

Despite the distractions of Easter and our avian visitor, work in the garden has gone on as one would expect!  With Matt and Sarah up for the weekend we had 2 extra pairs of hands so the team got to work!  Pots were sorted, graded and tidied by Sarah, meanwhile the verge had it's annual make over and was rotavated, rolled and seeded by Matt and Chris.  The yew hedge was straightened out and a rectangle cut in front of the utility window.  Sarah also helped pot up all the dahlias which had been carefully lifted and stored over winter.  There was even time for a small bonfire before having a well earned drink as the sun went down!  Hey ho - another Saturday in the garden.....yawn!

A straighter Yew hedge!

A Night on the Tiles!

Our surprise visitor!

Honestly!  The surprises one finds here at Pear Tree Cottage!!  This is who joined us for an evening on Easter Sunday!  I had heard him some distance away and started calling to him.  We called to each other for a while and then he decided to come and investigate for himself and flew into our oldest pear tree.  From there, he flew up on to our roof and stayed there all night.  I don't know where he came from but at least he was safe from foxes up there. The following morning he and I called back and forth but it was a peahen he was really hoping to find!  When we came back from our morning visit, he had gone. 

Under Gardener Triumphs!

Under Gardener in action

Result!

As predicted: as soon as the blossom is in flower and the daffodils at their best, down comes the horizontal slashing rain accompanied by thrashing gales!! Typical English spring weather! Sigh! No wonder we gardeners are never happy with our weather! 

Still, it didn't stop quite everything.  Just before the worst of the weather struck, our Under gardener complete with (nearly) new knee gave the lower lawn its very first spring cut and this time - no nasty symptoms afterwards.  Triumph!!  Not only am I thrilled that our favourite Under Gardener is pain free again  but, it's also so nice to have him out and about in the garden again.

Chris and I spent our time moving lengths of conifers in miserable conditions in order to re-stack them in a tidy fashion.  We made 22 stacks in all and I hate to think of the weight of wood that we moved.  We were working in a very tight and narrow strip with no room to swing a cat and were continually at war with brambles, dog roses, whippy hazel saplings tangles of dead goose grass and barbed wire. YUK! It took all of Saturday afternoon but it's now finished and no longer looks as if a tsunami has swept it all across the orchard!

Another Home Available for Rent

On a bright March morning as the sun melted away the frost, Chris Genever and I set up a traditional beehive down in the lower border where it will nestle amongst the Lamium beneath the Acers.  Alas no honey bees but if wild bees decide they'd like to come and squat inside (instead of taking over a bird house by the tool shed and evicting the birds), they would be more than welcome.  The hive was bought on Ebay and as much as I love the thought of keeping bees, alas I have no experience and little time. Shame really as we are surrounded by apple orchards and not only would pollinators have plenty to do but apple blossom honey sounds really tempting!