HIGHER MORWELL GARDEN DIARY
16th November 2017
The yew saplings finally turned up. The weather
has been very kind for November with
comparatively little rain, so the opportunity was
taken to start on moving dormant trees and shrubs,
and the polytunnel cleared of the tomatoes and
courgette plants that had stopped producing. We
still have a couple of dozen tomatoes ripening
quickly in the kitchen though.
It seemed a simple task, just dig a trench in the soft bed that used to be home to the appalling leylandii
and plant up the yews. Well the rain in September and October made the soil that had been sheltered for
years very heavy and although we thought we’d removed most of the stones and particularly the leylandii
roots, we hadn’t. The 18-metre long trench took two back-breaking days, oh for a mini-digger! The
actual planting was the quickest part of the job, then we covered the ground with bark mulch and
watered all the trees in. It only remains for me to make a neat border all the way up with a line of
pavers as an edging. On the evidence of the webcam overnight rabbit visits have dropped dramatically
since putting in the new fence but there are still one or two and the pyracantha on the right have been
nibbled. Mercifully yew is poisonous to most wildlife so should be safe from attack.
The weeping
cherry that has
struggled in the
overplanted bed
beside the potting
shed has a new
home. We plan to
put a small
circular wooden
shelter with
seating where the
platform seat is
next year, that
seat will move to
overlook the
pond. When we’ve
dug it out and
established it of
course!
