A couple of weeks ago my brother came to visit with his saw. The pruning of the golden delicious tree was first on the list. It had become so over-crowded and the fruits were mostly small and pitted. We gave it a radical going over- hopefully it is cure and not kill! I also weeded around it- although the circle will need expanding when I have recovered from my recent digging exploits. I shall also top dress with fish, blood and bone as apparently calcium is what is needed to stop bitter pits on the fruit.

We also took a branch off the silver birch in the background and I weeded out the iris foetidissima (which I loath with a passion and which grows like a weed all over the garden). The whole area looks so much better now and I plan to plant a carpet of crocuses under the birch in the Autumn.

The snowdrops are also proliferating all over the garden which is wonderful. The ones here under the apple tree I took from under the weeping beech tree- the tree surgeons come to get rid of that soon and I didn’t want the snowdrops to get trampled.

The planting has been started. It still needs some filling in but I have planted, a rose, holly, dogwood, Russian sage, delphiniums, lavender, penstemons, peonies, hibiscus, ceanothus, primroses, hellebores, daffodils and alliums. Lets see what escapes the bunnies nibbling….

If I ever start talking again about creating a new flower bed, please someone stop me! This project was started back at the start of December and many, many weekends of grafting later it is finally done. I thought I would never finish! I took out about 12 buckets of rubble/bricks/old pottery, a metal saucepan, several bottles, an old trowel, a plastic bat and a large bag-full of plastic including some every odd handle shaped red things. Not to mention tree roots from the nearby hedge and countless bit of couch grass and nettle roots. The ground was light and sandy and quite stony, so I have had to add manure and compost in places and it also needed a fair bit of levelling so that the plants near the path weren’t sitting on the edge of a cliff. I hope this mixed border will be worth it in the end and all the digging will mean that most of the perennial weeds will take longer to invade.