Two down, one to go.

Last night I opted to watch the coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show whilst Luke had a go at removing the first of the conifers. I heard voices and was pleased that Nick next door had come to help (that took the guilt away from me that I was leaving Luke to sort it). Although I cannot report on their working practise (I fell asleep!) they had managed to prise it from the ground by 9.00pm, only an hour after starting. How strange it is to see the house next door now rather than a mass of greenery.
Luke has had the bright idea of putting a log store where the trees were, thus stopping anyone from looking up into the garden from the side entrance and also to keep seasoned wood just outside the door so we can nip out and grab an armful when we need a fire. So my herbs will stay where they are (good job really as I am getting twitchy about having to move so many plants at completely the wrong time of year). Luke informed me that we would have to move the raspberries which also means having to move the roses (they are in a holding bed at the moment until I have a place to plant them but the raspberries need to go exactly where the roses are). All four roses there are out in full flower and aren't going to take kindly to being moved. Nor are the raspberries that are just started to plump up and ripen.




When we got home at 7.00pm we saw that Nick had proved as good as his word and taken down the middle conifer. Luke is now outside digging at the last one whilst Nick is putting together a chimenera outside and I've just heard the other neighbour, Jack, shout that he is bringing over his chainsaw! Men, hey? How lovely to be surrounded by so many capable ones which means I don't have to do it myself. Luke's crashcourse in chainsawing is about to begin. Cover your ears!

An hour later - they are all out, Whey hey.

Mahonia movement.

I've also dug up the jasmine which was planted along the border and can go back to climb up the fence once it's in place unless I plant it up in the front garden.
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?

Hens versus Delphinium

I've had chicken wire around the delphiniums ever since I planted them after one was stripped by hungry beaked birds (yes, the blooming hens again). We feel that the pleasure we and the chickens get from letting them meander through our garden outweighs the occasional damaged plant. I noticed today that one of the delphiniums wasn't protected by the chicken wire. Ah well, I thought, I'll get onto that once I have finished cutting into the conifers. Well, I deserved what I got which was one bare delphinium  with no leaves left whatsoever fifteen minutes after I'd looked at it. This pathetic skinny stemmed excuse of a plant serves me right. Just a shame for the plant as it was looking pretty good till then. Of course when I checked it out again and found it desimated the hens were nowhere to be seen. Typical.

 Before and after.