Hacking back

The blossom is almost there; just a few more days to go for complete white out.   I had to drive to the village this morning to check on the shrubs that I had planted this time last year and it’s always great to see the number of wild cherries dotted through the forests.   All the shrubs seem to be alive and most are thriving.   But I need to spend a good morning working over there to release them from rogue weeds.   But not today.

After marketing it was back into the garden and out with the secateurs.   The sage in the herb garden had to be hacked back.

I could see a lot of new growth much further down the stems so I just went for it in a keen and short back and sides way.   I get the feeling I didn’t prune hard enough last year because the sage was growing everywhere.   Long snaking branches were pushing up against the gravel and rooting.

There were some dead’uns in amongst them.   But now at least I have released the little salvia caradona plants which were swamped. It looks ghastly right now. And the glare from the mid day sun doesn’t help.   But trust me on this; the whole large herb garden area looks a whole lot tidier.

And I now have a huge bag of sage cuttings for drying.   I propagated a few dozen of the best looking bits.   But I’m not sure it’s going to be the ground cover plant that I thought it would be.   I cut back all the plants up near the stachys on the walnut path and I think half of them are dead.   But I’ll have to wait and see.

I then escaped the midday sun by popping up to the courtyard to plant some winter interest.   This is a little plant called winter box. Or sarcococca confusa. A confusing name if ever there was one. Your fingers trip over all those c’s on the keys.   It’s only a small shrub and will probably stay that way as it might be too sunny for the plant.   But the perfume is divine in winter and early spring.

I planted it in between the two large planters and just in front of the Gertie Jeykll rose that went in last month.

And then it was onto major mulching.   I have lots of bags left from the big mulch shop.   So I planted out three geraniums in the shade garden and lavished them with a deep mulch around the roots.

And then planted the 20 small echinacea purpurea bare root plants I bought from Columbia Road market.   These all went onto the first terrace outside the potting shed.   The soil is dry and had never been much improved. What was I thinking all those years ago?  So to remedy that down went lots and lots of this rich mulch.

I had the garden inspector in to check I was mulching well.   He hasn’t been about the past few days and is looking rather wan.   But it might be the heat. At least he visits a few times to say hello, even if he isn’t madly keen. I suspect he is just checking up on me.