RogerBW's Blog

I didn't do much in the garden last year. I'm not sure why; normally I spend the summers out here, but (perhaps for the obvious reasons) everything felt even more pointless than usual. So I've been committing mayhem recently.

The magnolia, supposedly grown from seed, survives all our neglect. It's now largely free again of the bramble that made its way in from next door (some of the bramble mass is still tangled in the top branches but I think it's all now disconnected from the ground).

There's a fair bit of new leaf growth on the lower part since I started cutting. The branches weren't being shaded by the bramble, but apparently it suppresses them somehow anyway. Water supply?

The ferns are thriving in the shade. I like ferns; they feel like home.

I thought this cherry tree was dead when I started to cut away all the foliage along the wall (fuchsia inextricably entangled with buddleia, and under it all a broken light-fitting which I think had been intended to illuminate one or the other). But I left it till last, by which point it had started to put out leaves. I've cut away the branches that weren't making leaves (and I still have some cherry wood should anyone want it), and given that this thing was full-grown when I moved in ten years ago it may not have long to live, but it's doing a decent job for now.

The main meadow is cut back to "walk across it" length, mostly. Those tussocks are packed masses of vegetation which it's not at all easy to break up. (The apricot tree was Not My Decision; scything gets harder the more one has to work into small spaces and round edges.)

But the moment there was room for them, the cowslips started coming up.