Have I told you before...?

..., that I love those cheeky chickens. I came in from attempting to dig up the bamboo in the front garden and found Luke letting them have a sneaky teaspoon sized blob of frosting from the end of his finger! Once they had had stabbed at it with their beaks they had to wipe the excess off by dragging their beaks across the ground. They have now been let into the greenhouse to have a dust bath and when I look out all I can see is an occasional tail poking up followed by a cloud of dust.

I've abandoned the back garden today to get the front tidied up. There are so many weedy, tiny trees and shrubs which are planted in the wrong place and all within two feet of one another. I have managed to pull up a large part of the bamboo which I'll give to Jenny for her garden but there is another bit which is planted slap bang along the wall and is proving resistant to my digging.

I'm thinking of putting in a bank of alpines on the slope but for now I just want to clean it up and get out the grass and weeds. You might be impressed with the pernacious weed I managed to remove in one piece. There's not much point breaking roots off on weeds as they will just come up again. Much better to put the work in and dig down as far as you need to before carefully removing the root system. The root here stretches all the way down to my left hand.

I've just heard on Radio 4's Gardeners Question Time that rain is indeed on it's way so the April showers promised in the old rhyme will be with us by mid week. Good for the garden, bad for my gardening because I can't get out and into the borders.
Never mind, nature does her thing and I try to work around her. Shame I forgot to bring the washing in though.