Gardening
Who’d have thought it, enough Wild Strawberries to harvest in my garden in Keswick. I introduced some casually a few years ago and they have spread. Growing outside but hidden under ferns and Rosemary in the kitchen part of my garden, the fruits have evaded the birds and thrived in the warmth and rain of this June. Small fruits but with a very intense flavour, they made a satisfying dessert with Raspberries from a shop.
Trimming the Rhododendrons in my Keswick garden now the flowering season has passed. But as well as plenty of flowers there was plenty of growth, obscuring a bird feeder both aeronautically and visually.
Hand pruning doesn’t seem to upset the birds for long. The local tits were back on the feeder within half an hour and, due to the trimming, I could watch and hear them clearly while taking a break in the shed.
Potting up one of the Mammillaria cacti of my balcony terrace in Marseille. A lot of root below the ground; the roots bind hard on the terracotta.
Flowering is over for this year for the old Wisteria in my West London patio garden. Now time for trimming to protect the boiler chimney from being strangled by Wisteria tendrils. Tree fern and apple trees doing fine, and some flowers on my citrus trees growing in pots.
Pulling my boots on I was pounced on by one of the colourful Keswick beggars. You don’t need to be a a hen pheasant to be impressed by his colours. Tame as the neighbours hand-feed a number of them.
Warmer weather and no shortage of rain mean the garden growth season is well under way. Plenty of trimming and thinning to be done. But it’s not all cutting, I uncovered a Holly sapling of about 25 cm height, dug it out successfully with about the same depth of root. Its new home is a gap in a hedge to the road. Watered in with some of its previous soil and rain water from the butt.
