Salutary strim

Thunder, lightning and 4mm of rain overnight. Well at least it’s something so no need to water the vegetable gardens this morning.

I owe so many days of news and photos, I thought it best to just launch in and work backwards.

We have had a bit more than we bargained for in that hot wind yesterday. A forest fire down on the winding road about 5kms from the house. Luckily in no time there were two Canadair planes dumping fire suppressing whatever, and lots of pompiers working from the road. Reassuring to think that they can attack the fire with such speed. But salutory in knowing that more strimming is needed if we are to be safe from a fire that starts from a careless cigarette chucked out on the road.

And it does mean I have work to do today now that it is almost cool. They are promising the temperature will not rise above 24C.   All those terraces below, apart from the first one below the house, are a bit long with neglected vegetation. Not jungle, but definitely in need of a strim. What a shame. I have an aching back from lifting something awkward two days ago, and don’t relish climbing into the strimming harness. But this is a vital lesson. We have never had a forest fire in this valley before.

And now, hours later, here is the result of my good intentioned plan. Zilch. I have done some landscaping instead. The new mirabelle bed. It is just an extension of the shade garden. But I have realised that I need to get the anemanthele lessonia (stipa arundinacea to you) into the ground. And I have long been thinking that this would be a good place for them.

With the shower of mirabelles almost over, it felt like a good time to clear the patch of land, remove all the suckers and stones and chestnut burrs and do something creative.

It was actually less work than I feared. Very dry and crisp. And only three barrow loads of stones. I have been on hands and knees and nursing the back, so I made lots of little and often trips to the edge of the property to lob the stones and stack the sticks and mess. I pruned back a few of the branches, but the mirabelle forest is just that. Gaggly and straggly but boy do they produce crops of fruit. A few plonked on my head as I worked, but otherwise I think the main crop is down.

Into the bed will go the grasses and the euphorbia polychroma majors which I have finally tracked down at the St Vincent nursery on Tuesday.

It has been a mantra at each nursery I have visited the last few months. They look as straggly as the mirabelles, but I just need to remember how great they looked in Beth Chatto and Christopher Lloyd’s garden in early spring. And I will fill with plenty of Nigella and Aquilegias in between. Don’t you just love confident plans?

There are five grasses left over to add to the large shade garden. But everything needs a good soak in a bucket before I dare to plant. And I would rather come in for a reviving salad of tomatoes, basil and mozarella instead.

Oh yes, and first up I planted about sixty radish plants. They were lingering in the potting shed and not doing any good. They are under the new cloche. And which ever way I turned this image it still turned out odd. Sorry about that. Bad for the vertigo.