HIGHER MORWELL GARDEN DIARY
7th December 2017
Daylight hours are much shorter now but we’ve still managed to get out in the garden almost every day. Most of the effort has gone into moving the crowded hydrangeas from the area that will become more vegetable growing beds. Leaf collecting has become less frequent, mainly those dropped by the magnolias now. Yesterday we ate the last tomato from the polytunnel, seems amazingly late.
Three hydrangeas have been moved, they will eventually have a wall behind them. That’s the plan anyway. The very attractive ragged daffodils have been dug out of the bed behind also, and three new beds and dividing paths marked out ready for digging. The three remaining hydrangeas will be moved to a space south of the fruit trees, then the heavy work can begin on the three vegetable beds. At least there isn’t a lot of grass to scrape off first.
Hazel trees beside the road and west Devon bank. Shame really but they need to go, probably in two ‘bites’ from our tree man Matt. A lot of the wood is dead and decayed, all are smothered in ivy and the trees cut out all the light when in full leaf, not to mention spreading across the telephone line along the road. The laurel is growing well along here and will do an able job keeping the deer out. The leaf pen will have to be moved or risk being crushed! I have actually removed the nearest tree post-photo yesterday, it only had two main trunks splitting very close to the ground so was relatively easy to chain-saw. Hazel logs burn well when dry!
This bed was home to the peas and beans in the summer. A couple of weeks ago Lesley planted some garlic which seemed to shoot almost immediately - and now we have a counted 150 garlic plants coming up! The only failure so far is an elephant garlic we bought at Hampton Court Flower Show last summer. Maybe it’s just a bit slow to get going…