Brambles and bunyips
I swear there were bunyips in there. Late this afternoon I decided on a spot of strimming. I zipped up along the top of the quince bank and above the guest house. That was easy. Well, ish. It is a steep slope, but I’m quite good at standing on a tricky bit of land with a whirring blade.
But down on the lower terraces it was another matter. Brambles. I can expect to find brambles on the stone walls creeping onto the terrace proper. But the lowest terraces closest to the vineyard where a disaster. Well established brambles all through the ground.
I am ashamed. I get the feeling I didn’t strim enough last year. How else to explain this invasion? I had it tamed in no time. And that’s the tyranny of strimming. It may be heavy work, but it’s so quick to tame a wilderness.
I must try and get on top of it this spring as well. And I do have two more of the smaller terraces still to do. But I have tamed acres so I ought to be pleased.
Earlier I did my usual spot of chipping. I have a lovely forest of sticks to get through. This time I managed to finish the last bit of the walnut bed I had missed, plus a spot of gap filling in the barn garden. And then, oh joy, the first part of the lavender bed is mulched.
I have piles and piles of sticks to go, but it’s progress. And the new blades chip so wonderfully.
Looking at my list I also remembered to move some perovskia shrubs that have to leave the barn garden (too tall) and join the rest of the perovskia in the plum bank. And I moved the – pause while I look up how to spell it – hakonechloa grass from under the walnut tree and down to the moister environs of the duck pond garden.
There is an underground spring there and I was thinking that it might be a good place to plant this grass that really does prefer wetter ground that a dry patch of earth underneath a walnut tree.
It will be no surprise to learn that Artur has barely moved from his wonderful net nest. The potting shed is at that perfect sunny temperature where even I would have happily nested inside.
Tomorrow I’m off to the south – to St Pierre le Dechausselat for the night to see Andrew’s garden progress and spend some quality time with him. I usually drive down and back in a day which is tiring as it’s a four hour round trip. So tomorrow ought to be much more leisurely.