We have had some warm-er days over the last ten days, several were pleasingly sunny. However, it appears that Mother Nature likes to toy with us. Just when we are thinking about wearing a pair of cut- offs and stoking up the barbecue, she not only drenches us but adds cold wind and hail storms as well.
Today was cold enough for thick gloves and Doc carried the pressure-washed garden bench into the greenhouse so he could oil the wood in some degree of comfort. Yesterday, we were pleased to find healthy little parsnip and carrot plants poking through the soil in the raised beds and today we are wondering if they will still be there tomorrow.
I have runner bean plants escaping from the cold frame and I had hoped to plant them out by the end of this week. I took a risk with the pumpkins, butternut squashes and courgettes – but they are snug under cloches for a while yet. The lettuces are doing well and of course everything in the greenhouse is on schedule. I nearly removed the fleecy tunnel from the potato bed but thought better of it and I’m glad I left it in situ. Potatoes do not like the cold and they have put on a lot of green growth this last fortnight which could frizzle if exposed to very cold temperatures.
Recently, Doc and I witnessed a sad spectacle in a neighbour’s garden. We have long since benefited from the view and majesty of their huge oak tree. We don’t know the details but a team of tree surgeons spent a couple of days dismembering the canopy of the tree. They were highly skilled, two men were harnessed in the tree itself and several others were on the ground using ropes and pulleys to guide down the severed limbs down. Limb by painful limb the tree was dismantled and the screeching of the chain saw made us shudder.
No matter how expertly the work was done, or how much it needed to be done, it was still sad. Who knows how many decades the tree has been growing? Ten? Twenty? We have always considered the tree part of the landscape, free to scrape the roof of the sky if it so wished. Now it is nothing more than a large stubby trunk with shortened arms, a ghost of its past. We are hoping though that this skeleton is a mercy. Maybe they have pollarded the tree so it can re-generate and be more manageable in the years to come. Every day we walk down the garden and a glance across at it. So far, the men have not been back to finish the job. We don’t want to hear them shout ‘timber’ as the last of the tree crashes to the ground.....
For the neighbours closest to the tree, there must have been a severe loss of light from such a monster of a canopy and indeed we shall have a much clearer view of the setting sun on those rare, balmy evenings. We did not have to live right next to Goliath, other people did, so we hope there are benefits worthy of such a drastic pruning.
It is poignant that tomorrow we are losing a very old, almost dead pear tree and an apple tree which is virtually falling down on its own. (It sways in high winds!) Our neighbours will have to listen as a chain saw tears into old wood. Sometimes we gardeners have to take difficult decisions but gardens bring with them responsibilities as well as opportunities.
So, Doc and I have decided. We are going to plant two trees to replace those we are about to lose. We would like a Liquid Amber but are undecided about the other one. I have also ordered two highly vigorous climbing roses: Rambling Rector and Himalayan Musk, to scramble up our last two remaining, large old apple trees in the orchard. All our replacement fruit trees, except the Bramley Seedling, are on semi-dwarf rootstocks so this is the last chance to make a bold statement.
There will be a lot of work to establish the roses because they will be close to the old apple trees and they are hungry plants. We will have to bury a very large open-ended pot, filled with masses of nourishing stuff for each specimen, protect the stems from rabbits and train the growth up the trees with wires. It is expensive too but hopefully, in a few years time, two roses will be scraping the roof of the sky and filling the air with delicious scent. Well, that's the plan. We can’t wait. It will be nice for the neighbours too.
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