What on earth eats holly ?

And what eats viburnum?

It’s not as though there isn’t plenty of uncut grass ……

Loving the wildlife still, but tired of putting up barricades- or just too lazy more like.

It is cold and frosty but the sun is out and some warmth can be felt as I walk down the garden and sit in the arbour. The witch hazel is making a good show and the first snowdrops are just coming through in the woods.

All around in the woods I can hear the wrens chatting busily and further up the garden the blackbirds and tits are calling.

The frost is making the earth in the vegetable patch friable and the early broccoli and leeks  are all ready to take off when the weather improves.

Those naughty rodents have been at it again causing havoc in the orchard. This winter they are chewing the bark from the trunks of the apple trees. I have put some plastic guards around them but the plastic is old and brittle and they don’t fit too well. I did retrieve some from the busway hedgerow the other side of the fence that we empty and lying on the ground but they are harder to fit. Sustainability is a good principle but it does often mean making do with things not being ‘quite right’.

This year perhaps I really will get the orchard fenced off and then I can also grow other herbs and flowers beneath the trees and make the orchard into a sort of mini garden itself.   I could also grow berries against the fences – although keeping the birds off them may be another thing.

I do enjoy all the wildlife in our garden and welcome them all, but I wish they weren’t so hungry ! According to Su next door she has seen many many badgers and also Roe deer and these may be to blame for the missing pears…