Acid-loving plants

Sorry, distracted. And not just by the bunting and gush of the royal wedding. I am on deadline. Which means I’m hunched over the keyboard and going cross-eyed, worrying about the volume of text I still need to translate.

I do run small errands around Hampstead. Marvelling in a sort of appalled wonder at these two garden trees in a house just round the corner. The red clashes with the alliums in a so bad it’s bad sort of way. It makes me think of Christopher Lloyd.

And I have tamed the garden here. The lawn was decidedly fluffy. I am the only one who uses a mechanical push and pull mower. Everyone else makes a din. So I feel pretty pleased as I whirr up and down this small strip of grass and then quietly rake the cut grass.

I swear with the amount of professional gardeners in this neighbourhood I wouldn’t be surprised to see the squirrels wearing ear protectors.

The marvellous little acer in the pot didn’t die over the winter. It lost its rather pleasing balanced branch, but I’m just thrilled it made it through the cold weather and is a sort of focal point closer to the house for the distant copper beech.

And I have pruned the smaller rhododendron in the front here. (I can’t reach the top of the camellia shrub to the right, which annoys me no end.) And as soon as the white mad acid-loving rhodo to the left gives off these ridiculous large white flowers, I can prune that one too.

A woodland, shrub garden needs careful management. At least I am an expert in hacking back wisteria.

The perfume is just gorgeous right now. And I must ask Kevin the name of this beautiful flowering shrub he planted in the front garden. It looks to me like a viburnum. The scent swirls and whirls throughout the house.

I cut a huge bunch when I was taming the box bush (currently impersonating a small planet) in front of the double height windows.

The euphorbia received a careful prune.

And the band aids on the fingers of my right hand attest to my valiant attempts at cutting back a rather invasive ornamental grass.

It blew into this garden. As did the six zillion sycamore seeds which are trying to turn into trees. Constance vigilance and all that. Turn your back on a sycamore seedling and it whoops for joy and grows into a beast overnight.

Sorry this is so perfunctory. My brain really isn’t attending.  Back to France next week (hurrah) where I can be a better correspondent.