February 1st

Our tidy-up continues …

We’ve got off to a flying start in the garden this year.   Taking advantage of mild, dry weather over the Christmas and New Year break, my husband John and son Ollie have started laying the native hedge on the south side of the orchard.  In just a few days they managed to do more than half the length of the hedge, although, now Ollie is back at university, progress may slow a little.  John has also been cutting hazel poles out of another hedge to use as posts and binders as he carries on with the hedge laying.

While the hedging was going on, I amused myself by dragging our old electric shredder out of the shed to see if it still worked.  It did!  I then cut down all the dead growth in the autumn border and shredded it.  The shreddings have been laid onto the bed to suppress weeds, taking care not to cover any plant crowns.  Having dealt with the autumn border, I then went round the rest of the garden, cutting down all the dead stems, which again I shredded.   With all the top growth removed, I’ve now started on weeding and generally tidying up.  As I clear each bed I’m mulching with a layer of home made compost.

I spent an afternoon tidying up rambling rose ‘Belvedere’.  It had put out long shoots after flowering, which I’ve managed to tie back onto its wooden support.  Hopefully it will flower well this year.  Snowdrops and the first hellebore buds are showing in the spring borders so, as usual, we’ve put up a temporary protective fence to stop the dogs charging across the beds and snapping buds off.  This works up to a point, although I do keep finding one dog looking puzzled on the ‘wrong’ side of the fence!

My Highlight

The first delicately scented, spidery flowers on the witch hazel.