A scintillating strim session

strimming top potagerWell you have to talk up the act of strimming. It’s noisy, heavy and damn hard work.

But oh so pleasing once it’s all done.

I had to go up to the area around our water supply up above the houses.  This was newly created a few years ago, and therefore bare earth is quickly colonised by pioneer plants. And for us that means Broom.  Genet.

I love the scent, but don’t appreciate the glaring yellow that screams out of the hillside. And it just seeds too successfully. broom

Here I had to wade in and cut back all the new growth.  I had a little helper. Artur was in one of those following me like a puppy moods.  And despite warning him that I had to yank a roaring machine straight into life he insisted on staying nearby.

arturThe old cat must be deaf.

And I could see him out of the edge of my vision and when I looked straight at him I distinctly saw him yowling at me. Turn off the damn machine and let me sit on your lap.

Hah. Too many acres to strim for that.

I did have one break to look at my newly planted up bank below the shade garden.  Part of me just thinks, wow, I’ve brought this back from a flooded mess.

I like the thyme because I rescued it from the fallen wall.  But that cistus?  It is way out of proportion.  It was the original cistus dubius I planted up from the 2010 Filippi order.  bank planted up

But what to do? I guess prune very, very hard after flowering.  But the thymes are never going to put on much more height than now.  Girth perhaps. But not height.

And part of me thinks it’s such a shame to have a beautiful shrub growing well and then having to hack it back.  It’s not the cistus’s fault I haven’t planned for its height.

I will do a bit of homework and maybe move it this autumn. No idea where.