10 Year Surprise!

 With all that's been happening around here and a massive spike in C19 infections, I withdrew form our annual NGS County Meeting held last week. A bit of a shame really as it was to be in person - the last two being zoom meetings thanks to a certain virus. This should have been the first return to normality! Cest la vie!

Having prepared my slideshow presentation, Dave Morgan our County Organiser stood in for me. I had no idea that we had been opening for 10 years until he explained that I would also miss being presented with an engraved trowel for services rendered.   Anyway here it is! Now, the $64,000 question is, will I dare to use it?

Simon to the Rescue!

 It just gets busier and BUSIER in the garden!  Luckily with both Chris's down with Covid, Simon timed his visits to perfection and was kind enough to help me tackle the biggest cleaning job in the garden - the acres of glass in the greenhouse!  This is where height is SUCH an advantage as he was able to easily reach all the glass in the roof and the gables and all before the grapevine obstructed too much!  It's already put on lots of growth in the sunny warm weather we've been enjoying.  

Moving every pot out and then back in again is a time consuming and very muddling job but there just isn't any alternative.  After a lot of lifting and shifting with even more elbow grease, the greenhouse is now postively sparkling with no hint of green algae running down the glass!

Simon also painted the silver/rusty arch and having repaired the pear and undercoated it, I found some spray and 'tarted' it up to try to make it look more realistic!  The old Pear Arch has never looked so good!

Busy, Busy, Busy!!

It's spring already and we've been so busy in the garden and making the most of some warm spring sunshine!  Hedges both sides of the drive have been trimmed.  The beech has been reduced in height abd the Laurel has had a mini pleach! Lawns are all cut and edges.  Pots are filling with colour and perfume as they are filled with Hyacinths and Primulas.  The Tulips are budding up nicely and, in the borders, the wallflowers won't be long before they're in flower.

Better late than never, I pruned the roses over our circular arch.  SUCH a difficult job as there is a climbing rose and a clematis either side!  Two are super thorny and two are supper brittle!!  Anyway, 'tis done at last!  On the move are the scented violas - from the owl planters to the raised border by the old cast iron roller.

 

Meanwhile the flag stones have all been swept and tidied, the greenhouse floor has been cleaned and even Easter Island Man has had a haircut and blow dry!  Borders have been hoed and weeded.  Camelias and Magnolias are blooming and the Woodland Border which is always at its best in spring has really excelled itself this year.  Talking of borders: the Aspen Grove is also a picture!  It has really filled out and even thought the snowdrops are going over now, the Euphorbias and Primulas are following one!  Even though the Aspens were replaced with some Betula Jaquemontiis, the name remains!!

HAWTHORN RESCUE!

We took an impulse decision to remove an old and rampant rose which was absolutely suffocating a hawthorn tree.  In all the years it had been there, the rose had never once born a single flower.  A real dog in a manger as it also prevented the hawthorn from flowering!  Chris never hesitates when it comes to anything difficult or challenging and this was both!  The stems were hugely think with vicious thorns.  It was the Putin of roses!  We filled 2 bulk bags and 2 wheelbarrows with chopped up rose.  The little hawthorn tree can now breathe again and can see light!! Whilst these photos demonstrate before and after: as nothing is in leaf, they don't demonstrate just how much darkness the poor hawthorn suffered!

! should add that last autumn's homemade hawthorn jelly was the best ever.  Maybe this year, I can make even more!

More Recycling in Favour of Chickens

On possibly the wildest gardening day ever, Chris (Genever) and I braved storm Eunice to make a new door for the House for Hens!  The old ply door was really disreputable.  The the ply was delaminating and it was falling to pieces. 

The new door has been expertly crafted from a recycled and very old pine shelf.  It is a traditionally styled ledge and brace door but in miniature!.  The edges of each panel have been chamfered and finished with my favourite mixture of 50 - 50 linseed oil and pure turpentine.  Obviously, we reused the original hinges.  

As the door is nearly always in the open position, it has scalloped copper detail to protect its top and ledges from the worst of the weather.  To secure it closed, Chris made a tiny oak turn key which he referred to as a turn buckle - funny how these old fashioned names vary in rural areas.  The front of the door has its very own miniature lead pear which I had made the week before for absolutely no good reason but I figured it would find a home somewhere!!

I've just checked back to find that this original 'House for Hens' was purchased from Edward Tate of Shropshire in 2010 and is a medieval style pole house.  I can hardly believe we've been keeping hens for so long!  The house looks in pretty good shape for 11 years!  The pole has been replaced as has its base but the house is maintained with creosote and paint.  Very many eggs have been laid inside it!

I should perhaps mention that there were very noisy objections from Simone who chose the moment of installation to go up to lay. She spent the entire time squawking and clucking from the nest box!!

'No-Chris' Saturday!

 

Unusually, it was a 'no-Chris' Saturday but, as it was so dry, I topped the grass in the orchard before setting about border work.  First up were the 2 Dragon Borders where I cut down dead perennials and had a good weed and tidy up as well as pulling out 100's of wild Hellebore seedlings which are all disease ridden and I don't want it spreading to the beautiful hybrids which are all coming into flower.  Then across to the Woodland Border to try to remove a lot of ivy - not easy to do without ripping the heads of both Snowdrops and Hellebores!

  Note to self: must start weeding much earlier!!

Extreme Smugness!

Compost bay emptied,  current compost turned & moved into 2nd bay, borders all mulched, Wisteria pruned and ferns cut back AND all finished on 5th February!!  An absolute record!!  Mostly thanks to a dry January  and of course: Chris!!  Most years it's been too wet to complete these jobs this early and it's so nice to be ahead of the game when the snowdrops are up and Hellebores coming into flower.  There's always so much to look forward to!

Both of us finished yesterday's jobs feeling very smug indeed!! I must say; the Fernery Path looks so dramatically different at this time of year. Gone is the lush and shady appearance of fern fronds framing the path edges with Snowdrops and Hellebores all sleeping over summer.

These 2 photos are exactly the same view - one taken in August and the other in February.