When we first moved to this house, fifteen months ago, I moved some mahonias which were in the wrong place and quite weedy looking. They didn't appreciate being moved when it was so cold and I lost a couple of them. Two of them though, planted close together to make them look lusher have thrived and leafed up considerably. How happy they are in their spot makes it harder to justify moving them again - at the wrong time of year and fairly soon after the last move. Trouble is, they are slap bang in the centre of the boundary and will have to be uprooted for the fence so best to give them a great slosh of water, have their well watered newly dug hole ready with plenty of space for the roots and transplant them within minutes from one hole to the other. Firming down the soil around them to stop them rocking in the breeze and ensuring there are no air pockets around the roots and then another much longer watering (in fact I just put the hose pipe at the base for over five minutes). All we can do now is water again over the next few days and hope.
Whilst typing this up we have been distracted by a great tit who has been working through the peanuts in the feeder at a tremendous rate of knots. The feeder hangs from a shrub and the cat next door often hides underneath hoping a tit will land on the ground and present itself unwillingly as her supper. The chickens love the place too as any nuts which fall from the feeder are soon vacuumed up by them and Luke has been wondering if the tit we have been watching going through the nuts and rejecting four or five by throwing them over the side is actually doing it to entice our chicks over and in doing so ensuring that the cat isn't hiding in the shrub. I'm not sure but it was fun to see him pick up a nut in his beak, throw it over the side and do it again and again before finding one he seems happy to eat. Aren't they meant to sing for their supper?
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