Up a Cotswold Garden Path: An obstacle removed

A return to the UK after 3 weeks in Norway, and it’s remarkable how much colder England feels – although the temperatures are fairly similar overall (similar to lowland Norway, where we’ve been for the past week, at least), the dampness here makes it feel chillier. An early March update in the next post, but meantime here is what I was up to in early February.

The weather back then was ideal gardening weather - some lovely bright days with surprisingly warm sun and frosty nights. It was a good time to tackle one of those jobs that had been hanging over me for ages; not urgent work, but necessary to get it out of the way so that other things could be done successfully. To be precise, dealing with the tree at the entrance to the Dump.

The bottom of the garden has a copse of damsons, probably suckers from the plum tree that were allowed to get out of hand and are now small trees in their own right. One of these grew at the entrance to the Dump corner (where the compost bins, lawn mowings pile and other unsightly garden stuff live), with enough space for access between it and the upright post that originally supported the trellis screening the mess behind. Over the years, however, the tree started to lean, initially against the post but eventually getting lower and lower until I had to duck down to get in there. With a wheelbarrow full of lawn clippings, this got tricky, and something had to be done. The problem was not only having to cut through the trunk – which wasn’t particularly thick, but definitely a saw job – but to detach the top growth from the tangle of branches of the other trees around.

Before ....

... and after

So, out with the bowsaw. In the end it was easier than I expected. It took a fair bit of hacking to cut through the trunk, and then I just pulled the upper part of the trunk, branches and all, over the trellis and on to the lawn. It came away from the other trees without too much damage. After that, all the branches had to be cut off and larger pieces chopped up; these were heaped on the various woodpiles that I maintain down among the damsons to provide homes for the wildlife. The trunk likewise was left on the ground in the Dump by the wall, in the hope that it will give shelter for beetles as it decays. And now I can enter the Dump, with wheelbarrow if necessary, without bending down!

It's that time of year when robins seem to be everywhere in the garden; all outdoor work is accompanied by singing nearby, sometimes at very close quarters, and great interest in what’s going on. While I was attending to the tree, the bottom-of-the-garden robin serenaded me until a couple of other robins turned up to try to chase him off, and a great deal of fast acrobatic flying through the branches ensued. What seemed to be the same robin, unchallenged by his competitors, was still around the following day when I was planting out the garlic in the veg plot, an activity that generated a lot of interest from him, though I expect he was disappointed when I covered the bed with fleece (to stop the birds from pulling the cloves up).

Down on the edge of the damson thicket, I found a little clump of Cyclamen coum, in flower. I didn't put it there; I'm guessing that mice, or ants, moved seed from the plants up by the pond, but it's a welcome sight nonetheless. I just hope that the violets don't swamp it.

Cyclamen coum

The good weather meant that growth continued apace, even in early February; daffodils were showing buds, although experience says that they can sit around like that for weeks before actually flowering (and, three weeks later, I’m still waiting for the first bud to open, although it should be any day now). Winter aconites were in flower, and in odd corners there were the first blooms on pulmonaria and primroses; and the little clump of Crocus angustifolius alongside the drive which always takes me by surprise. Totally unexpected, though, were the several orchid clumps in the lawn, already showing well-grown leaves; the lawn, left unmown to let the wildflowers come through last summer and autumn and now looking very rough and turfy, is in need of attention, but I need to consider whether to mow over the orchid leaves or let them be! Would it affect flowering? I don’t know!