Making the most of the leftovers

I had four hornbeam trees sitting on pots and sulking outside the potting shed.

My thoughts are turning to winter and how to store things inside the potting shed.  Some things have to come indoors when I can cajole someone to help me heave in the heavy loads.

And I had these hornbeams stacked in front of the heavy pots just waiting for me to come up with a plan.

I thought I was going to put them at the top of the walnut path as a sort of full stop where I had placed the log and the new barrier against the flood water.

But it felt like hornbeam overload. It’s all very well putting in these small trees; but one day they will grow. And I don’t want a forest. Here is one I planted in the mixed hedge underneath a huge oak tree. Despite the challenging conditions, it is already over my head.

But I have been encouraged to keep on planting up the oak bank.  It is a bit exposed and any car driving past our top property gets a perfect view of anyone sitting under the vines dining.

The oaks already there are growing at the zippy pace of about an inch a year. So in went the four hornbeams.

They are on the very edge of the road so who knows, they might even get some runoff from the torrential rain that races along during storms. I don’t like planting even numbers, but I only had four trees left.

I have kept a space for another tree when next I venture down to the plant nursery on the Rhone.

And here’s another thing lurking by the potting shed. Artur is confused by this weather.

It’s not warm enough for him to snooze in his favourite parts of the garden, but it’s not so cold that he needs to retreat to a box and doze all day.  He does like to supervise.

And I am beetling about. Not staying in one place, and it irks him.

But it is a question of siezing the day when you lose the daylight around 430pm.  There just isn’t enough time to attend to a cranky cat and plant trees, and do the bulbs.

I won’t be forgiven, but hopefully he will find some other distraction for a bit.