So farewell, then, hy-flipping-drangea

I have had a hydrangea in the garden since I came here. That’s not unexpected; most of the gardens in the area have hydrangeas. Some are gorgeous colours – my favourite is the mix of deep pinky/purply/crimson.

My hydrangea is not deep pinky/purply/crimson. It’s baby blue. With shades of faint lavender fading to washed-out greeny white, turning to unpleasant brown.

Around its feet are wild garlic, all sorts of bluebells (rapidly becoming one sort of bluebell, and the wrong sort), some St John’s Wort, a vast number of Welsh poppies and more of the crocuses.

The hydrangea is very old, very big and very reluctant to put on any sort of show. We’ve pruned it, with varying degrees of savagery, in an attempt to persuade it to a) flower more prolifically, or b) die.

This is the time of year for pruning hydrangeas.

Only this year I had a fit of the vapours:

Take that!

And because hydrangeas can spring back, even from this, take even more of that:

It’s been mattocked, and the root is now reposing on the bonfire heap. I defy even a hydrangea to come back after that.

Now I need to clear up this bed, remove the rest of the Great Root of Doom – and decide what on earth I’m going to put in its place. Any ideas? My soil is acid, the bed is in shade a lot of the day and the wall faces east (killer winds) but does provide shelter from the prevailing westerly wind. There’s an old pear tree nearby which really prevents the introduction of anything large or tall (and is the reason why there are no distance shots of the bed – I’ve taken some but they’re all pear tree).  The world is my oyster, or possibly my azalea, but I’d better do something quickly before the rest of the bed is colonised by the wild leeks and interloping bluebells. So, suggestions please (no, not another hydrangea).

And now I’m off to psych myself up for the village Garden Club’s spring show on Wednesday. I’ve never entered anything in a flower show before, and I would pick the year of the Big Winter Blast, wouldn’t I? Well, at least everyone else is in the same boat…

A crime – solved?

Well, Holmes and Watson have been round to look at the evidence from the mystery excavations in my garden:

All right, it was actually Karen (Artist’s Garden) and Shedman, but that is me in the feathered hat.

A paw print, now sadly blurry, was discovered.

Paw print, not – alas – claw print.

So much for the dragon theory.

But it also scuppers another – badger would be larger, rounder and claws would be more clearly visible – and leaves me with this:

Though possibly not a cur fox, but a young female – hence the absence of smell. There are certainly a lot more foxes around here than there used to be, leading to the removal and execution of a persistently annoying cockerel in the village, but I’d discounted them on the grounds that there was no other evidence. But the paw print clinches it, unless it is a passing dog. I could – according to Watson – try laying a trap of currants, which foxes apparently love. My own experience of foxes leads me to think that a discarded doner kebab might be more effective, but I could be corrupted by spending twenty years in London.

Next question – what to do?

Crime scene

Something has been mangling my garden. (This sentence reminds me about trying to help a friend prepare for an advanced class at the Institut Français by coming up with outlandish phrases illustrating different ways of expressing damage: my contribution was ‘the wreckage that the hurricane left in my garden’.)

Whatever it is, it’s been digging for victory, and only in this bed. I have several potential candidates, given that hurricanes tend not to dig.

1. Corvids. I have a lot of problems with crows, jackdaws, etc digging up chafer grubs at this time of year, and this lawn was always a favourite place before we created the bed. However, these holes are just too big, unless they are using spades. I know corvids are bright, but I doubt they’ve been able to get into the ty bach, remove the spades, use the spades, clean the spades, replace the spades and then close the door again.

2. Badgers. My garden is surrounded by stone walls, high stone walls, and the gates are closed. Though I did pass a badger trolling down the hill one evening as I was on my way up, I think it was making for the pub rather than contemplating scaling the walls. For one thing, it didn’t have a ladder.

3. Foxes. It does look a bit like fox damage – I lived with that when I was in my London phase – but there are no other signs: no strong smells, poo, take-away cartons or dismembered pigeons. And, following my London experience, I no longer use fish, blood and bone as that is as attractive to the average fox as a dodgy meat pie is to a footie supporter at half time.

4. Rabbits. No shit. Seriously – rabbits poo everywhere. There are no signs of anything other than these huge holes. No footprints, even when we had snow. And I don’t believe in ‘ghost rabbits’ previously suggested as solution to disappearing mangetout. I know what helps itself to tender veg, and it has two legs and not four.

It’s not just in the exposed areas of the bed either, as in some cases plants, like this anthemis, have been shoved out of the way.

So what the hell is it? It’s not happening in daylight, as far as I can tell, and there are no signs of damage anywhere else. Next door’s fox terrier was put down last year. P no longer has a dog, either, and nor has he been overtaken by a desire to become the Phantom Digger of Dyffryn, or he says he hasn’t. Hobbits? I think their holes would be bigger, rounder and involve large film crews which the neighbours would be bound to notice.

And it’s not me. OK, I am responsible for one of the huge holes in this bed where I ripped up my Angelica gigas, but not the rest. Honestly. Any more suggestions?

Now you see it… or games with power tools

What do you do on a fine but cold Monday, when the list of absolutely vital garden jobs covers two sheets of A4? (Apart from go shopping, that is.) I had the answer: you have fun with chainsaws. And ropes.

I’ve three ash trees in my garden, and I’m staying off the whole subject of ash die-back here because I don’t want to throw my laptop through the window. The one in the middle garden needed a lot of work a few years ago, but the two at the top have only really been pecked at, and have started worrying me in high winds, when they’re inclined to drop branches. Any work has to be carefully timed and scheduled in the gap following the meadow trim, but before any of the bulbs so much as sticks a tiny pointed shoot above ground. Perfect right now, in fact. Time for major surgery.

(Plus, of course, it gives some people the chance to do what they really enjoy: play with power tools. And, in a fine bit of gender stereotyping during one pause, my friend and I fiddled with the 1936 sewing machine I’ve just bought while the boys talked petrol strimmers.)

Still life with chainsaw?

One advantage of not using a tree surgeon for jobs like this is that you get all the brash and the finer branches – stuff that a tree surgeon would shred. I do appreciate the chippings after Mr Tree Surgeon Man has been round, but I’ve got four builders’ rubble sacks full from the cedar and I don’t really need any more, handy though they are. But while having the smaller stuff is extremely useful in terms of extra logs for the stove and humungous amounts of kindling, it is also a lot of work for the Support Team (when they’re not talking sewing machines).

I’d not realised exactly how sexually determined yesterday’s tasks were until I started writing this post… Hm. What would Sylvia Pankhurst, Virginia Woolf, Betty Frieidan or Gloria Steinem do? Probably not bowsaw their thumb, as I did. Bet Virginia never went anywhere near a bowsaw (though I think Vita Sackville-West could have been useful to have around, probably also fine with power tools). It’s fine, thanks. Just stopped bleeding, nearly 24 hours later. Memo to self: wear gloves. Wear gloves. Wear gloves. Ahem.

But it was worth it. My friends disappeared with multiple sacks of wood and kindling (and there’s more but we ran out of sacks, so they’re coming back); my own wood heap has been beautifully augmented,

and that’s just the smaller stuff. There are lots of good big branches, some of which were rather interesting to retrieve from inside the biggest skimmia on the planet – in the foreground below – awkwardly growing around the base of one of the ashes. This involved a lot of strange movement in the skimmia without any apparent source, as the log pushers were completely obscured by foliage. So the skimmia got a bit damaged? It can take it, as can I, and at least it isn’t going around with a stupid huge plaster on its thumb (not sure about that image; I think I need more coffee).

The disadvantage of doing a job like is that there are some parts of it that you just cannot do yourself, and one of my ashes is now extremely tall and too close to power lines.

I overruled protestations about this (though they subsided quite quickly once P actually got up in the tree and realised how high he would have to climb, and how close the branches are to the power lines – ‘does this supply all of the village?’) and called Mr Tree Surgeon Man again. So the job isn’t quite finished, but it’s been enough to delight one of my neighbours up the hill who popped round (and coincidentally offered to take some of the timber off my hands). He’d never seen the beach from his house before.

Given the speed ashes grow, I’d take the pictures now. Or maybe he should just wait until ash die-back hits west Wales. Hmm. Where’s my laptop?

PS: Just back from doc – tetanus jab. Ironic, really, that I should have spent all that time worrying about blokes hanging on to trees by their fingernails while holding chainsaws in their teeth, but the only person who got hurt was this idiot. Still, it made the nurses at the surgery laugh…. again.

Still life with tree surgeons

I went to work. I came back at lunchtime.

At least it wasn’t raining…

They’re back to finish off on Friday. And in the meanwhile I have a huge straight trunk with a nobbly bit at the top rearing up into the sky – very, er, symbolic. Ahem.

You can understand why coming round the corner five hours later and finding this

was something of a shock. Always an archaeologist at heart, I suddenly understood the impact of a newly-erected (ooo, er, missus) standing stone. At least it will be down soon…

(And if any of the local pagans are reading this, you’re welcome to come and dance around it on payment of a – let’s just say ‘large’ instead of any other adjective which might leap to mind – fee. It would help offset the cost…)

Land of my slugs (and snails)

Right, that’s IT.

The flaming slugs have eaten my strawberry (note the singular, by the way – that gives you some idea of its significance). It’s turned my mind, and I’ve turned to song – this is Wales, after all, Land of Song and all that.

So imagine the tune of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (aka Land of my Fathers), a male voice choir on the top of some mountain, probably Cadair Idris as the cafe on top of Snowdon (above) would distract from the moment, and a LOT of rain.

Do feel free to sing along.

The slugs ate my strawb’rry, they noshed it with glee
They chomped it and chewed it, they left none for me,
They’ve lunched on the lettuce, they’ve slimed the courgettes,
The broad beans are calling them home.

Hens! Hens! What I need now are some hens!
A cock’rel, some pullets or a nuclear device,
Machetes, an UZI – or hens.

My slugs like a beer and seem partial to salt,
And skanky old fleeces don’t cause them to halt
They abseil down hedges, they climb up the pots,
The mangetout are calling them home.

Hens! Hens! What I need now are some hens!
A cock’rel, two pullets or a nuclear device,
Machetes, an UZI – or hens.

And now, with an extra stanza and a revised chorus thanks to recent events – which I regard as blatant provocation – and the comments received, I bring you Hen Wlad Fy Ngwlithenni (aka Land of my Slugs, or at least I hope it is – I had to look it up, mae’n ddrwg gen i), part 2, to keep you up to date:

A slug in my greenhouse left traces to see,
Slime trails and chewed leaves were all waiting for me,
I sifted, I lifted, I rootled it out,
The peppers were calling it home.

Ducks! Ducks! Now what I need are some ducks!
Hens won’t help a bit as they’re really quite thick,
For action, I really need ducks…

and in case anyone thinks I’m being disrespectful, I’ll just add ‘pleidio wyf i’m gwlad’, and add that I was once a stand up comic. That probably explains a lot.

Here’s the real thing for anyone who doesn’t know it, as sung, inevitably, before a rugby match (with Scotland, in February this year):

(You might like to turn the volume down – the roof was on, so it was a bit on the loud side. How sensitive are slugs to noise? Do they have ears? Can I stun them by yelling?)

Houston, we have a problem…

Well, all right, I admit that on a scale of 1 to 10 where the Apollo 13 near-disaster was a 10, this would be about a -50,000. But for me it’s a problem, and I’m not sure I’ve got at the solution.

(I am sure that I have a stinking cold, but it’s not blurring my judgement or making me see things. Much.)

I have two gorgeous camellias in the bottom garden.

The larger of the two is this double, and it must be – oh, about 2.5m tall at least. It is sheltered from the worst of the wind by the Portugal Laurel and a perfectly ordinary buddleia, and it’s always been fine. Gorgeous, in fact.

Until now.

Bleagh.

Initially I thought it was camellia yellow mottle virus but it’s not yellow, more of a cream, and yellow mottle really is yellow – or at least it is in all the pictures I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot recently. Also CYMV – according to the books – doesn’t weaken the plant, and this whole plant is looking a bit peaky. Also, I’ve been told that it leaves the veins green – not a hint of green there, though there is on some of the bleached leaves.

Fortunately most of the leaves are still a happy (um, a bit droopy, actually) camellia green.

I did wonder about chlorosis, but we’re on exactly the right soil for camellias and they grow like weeds round here. The other one is fine, and it’s only a couple of metres away, slightly lower down the slope. But this double does not look good, and that’s even allowing for the natural tendency of camellias to look as though someone has scattered them with old paper hankies as soon as the flowers begin to turn brown.

The other thing that occurred to me was waterlogging.

It has been very wet – there are damp patches in the house where there’s never been damp before and all this talk about drought is making me feel envious, but water issues round here are deeply political and it’s my water* – and this camellia is very close to the soakaway. So is the other – but not quite so near. The soakaway is in good condition for a 200-year-old waste management system, but its whole purpose is to let water soak away (dur). Could it, I wonder, be permitting this particular camellia to sit with its feet in water? Or maybe the (eco) washing powder / washing-up liquid I use has altered the soil’s ph? Maybe it’s time to find the tester and check it out. I should also mention that an Acanthus mollis nearby is also looking a bit on the yellow side, or maybe that is me and my head full of gunk.

(In the meanwhile, P and I have dumped a whole load of acidic red cedar chippings at the camellia’s base.)

And I’m immensely grateful that the other camellia, the single, has just started flowering. It’s always later, but it’s usually overshadowed by its blowsy companion. Not this year,

which just proves my theory that there’s always a silver lining if you look hard enough.

If anybody has any suggestions, I’d be very interested. I’m going to cut a chunk off and send it to the RHS nasty things identification service, but I’m not sure I can do much about it if waterlogging is the problem. And it’s so big, I’m not sure what I’d do if it was yellow mottle (er, cream mottle in my case). Hire a cherry picker, perhaps. P would love that – boys and their toys – but ladders would probably be just as good. Big ladders.

*Though I could probably supply Liverpool with water single-handed at the moment, politics or no politics. Mind you, we’d need lots of buckets.