Heron back, frogs in hiding, transplanting cosmos seedlings, cock greenfinches fighting outside my window, blackbird attacking the window again, difference of opinion in house.
R has decided after all she is not a wild garden enthusiast, wants garden rooms a la Hidcote, big yew hedges etc. I mentioned that I am getting more decrepit and cannot wait for yew to grow, cannot afford a ready grown hedge.
IMPASSE! (Except I will give way somewhat as I love her.)
The garden is a bit here, a bit there, I suppose, a bit short of good planning. I take a corner and think - got some old blackcurrant cuttings - shove them in there, big empty patch of lawn needs six white birch. R thinks veg and fruit beds in wrong place - spent hours double digging and preparing them - cannot face starting that again.
Alas, alack, what shall I do.
Then an invite came - I could try and get some help - Helen Yemm it!
I cannot see the trees for the brambles, the garden needs a fresh pair of eyes, without floaters and soily glasses.
So I have sent off my blurb and a few photos, not to mention the address of this blog. (If that doesn't put her off nothing will.)
The first image is the view from the Wendy House (where R writes) up the garden over the boardwalk (rotting a bit) over the ponds (silting up). The thug plants in the foreground are pendulous sedge.
Molehills are all over the place but I have not the heart to borrow Barry's trap, end it all, make a waistcoat.
I take the soil and put it onto flowerbeds where there is a deficiency of depth. No doubt, one day, the big mower will disappear into a chasm.
The weather has turned much colder again today and I am glad I resisted the spring urge to put out tender plants too early. We are already three weeks late.
Talking of flowering currant bushes, big, pink and smelling a bit like cat wee, I just leave them. They were something left by the previous owner of the plot, Tom. Unfortunately the pink of their flowers does clash with the gaudy yellow of the daffs. The biggest clump hides an old well, an ugly black box covered in bitumen, and now wire netting to keep investigative grandchildren out.
R has decided after all she is not a wild garden enthusiast, wants garden rooms a la Hidcote, big yew hedges etc. I mentioned that I am getting more decrepit and cannot wait for yew to grow, cannot afford a ready grown hedge.
IMPASSE! (Except I will give way somewhat as I love her.)
Alas, alack, what shall I do.
Then an invite came - I could try and get some help - Helen Yemm it!
I cannot see the trees for the brambles, the garden needs a fresh pair of eyes, without floaters and soily glasses.
So I have sent off my blurb and a few photos, not to mention the address of this blog. (If that doesn't put her off nothing will.)
The first image is the view from the Wendy House (where R writes) up the garden over the boardwalk (rotting a bit) over the ponds (silting up). The thug plants in the foreground are pendulous sedge.
I take the soil and put it onto flowerbeds where there is a deficiency of depth. No doubt, one day, the big mower will disappear into a chasm.
The weather has turned much colder again today and I am glad I resisted the spring urge to put out tender plants too early. We are already three weeks late.
Talking of flowering currant bushes, big, pink and smelling a bit like cat wee, I just leave them. They were something left by the previous owner of the plot, Tom. Unfortunately the pink of their flowers does clash with the gaudy yellow of the daffs. The biggest clump hides an old well, an ugly black box covered in bitumen, and now wire netting to keep investigative grandchildren out.
There is also a Rambling Rector rose entangled in it.
It is Rs turn to do the flowers on Sunday at church so a big pick of the daffs is coming on - we have plenty - and they do not need fancy arranging - a big vase stuffed with daffs is splendid enough as it is.
The photo is of wild daffs - these are on the banking at the fringe of the wood - where the wood anemones, golden saxifrage and bluebells grow.
I dug out part of the small stream where it crosses the septic tank soak away - and into which the stream has been disappearing - lined it with pond liner and replaced the turf at the side and stones in the bottom.
It worked! The stream flows on, well twenty feet to the bend where it crosses the soak away again - there it disappears as before.
More digging needed.
In fact R wants the stream to run in a completely different place - sigh!
Actually, with all the dry weather we have had recently it is hardly running anyway. The ponds and Duck cafe (pair of mallard) are kept going by the overflow from the septic tank and thus the house.
All I have to do to top it up is flush the loo or have a bath.
The taddies do not seem to mind.
After all that let me finish on a high note. Since we came I have been spreading and sowing candelabra primulas below the pond, as at Harlow Carr (but a bit more modest), and this year we are going to have a fantastic show which gives more seed etc etc.
Something for nowt! And I was born in Lancashire not the other place over the Pennines.
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