Next Job Done.

I had a bit of a lie-in this morning courtesy of the blanket of snow that had fallen in the night .... again!

There was more snow than yesterday's fall and the valley was blissfully quiet as I scrunched my way to feed the hens, with bare legs and dressing gown as I had rushed downstairs to scare off those dratted jackdaws.

The snow soon started to melt as the sun came out though the shaded parts of the garden kept their coverings of snow throughout the day. We are forecast the same again tonight with heavier snow on Sunday night. No problem for us so long as we can get out on Monday, I expect we'll leave the cars up the hill again tomorrow afternoon.

Today's gardening job was tidying the bog garden, down below the bank just behind my little snowy car. When we first moved here part of the charm of the place was the fact that the property is bounded on 2 and a bit sides by streams. The previous owners had dug out an in-line pond which we did maintain so that for a couple of years we had a shallow pond ending in a tiny waterfall. However water is an inexorable force and even though we are quite high up in the valley the pond would inevitably fill up with stones and gravel. Things were not helped by the fact that the lake next door has slowed the water down and reduced the fall of the stream. As the dam that formed the lake carries my neighbour's access road this situation is never going to change. The lake has been gradually silting up and I think that if some serious dredging isn't done it will be totally silted up in the next 10 years if not sooner. My solution was to abandon the idea of an in-line pond but to create 2 planting beds and allow the stream to run between them. Normally the stream is only a few inches deep and about 3ft wide but it can rise quite rapidly and often floods over the beds and path. My task today was to clear away all the dead leaves and branches on the path and to weed the bed on my side of the stream. In this bed are growing many astilbes which thrive in those conditions, some arum lilies which survive and some primulas. I did have a lovely clump of big candelabra primulas, the kind with white stems and bright magenta flowers, but I lost them eventually. On the far side of the stream I have a 'wild' bed. The high bank with mature trees that marks my neighbour's boundary keeps it shady in the summer and it would be hard work to have formal planting there. Instead I randomly plant/throw any of my garden plants that I think might grow there; wild flag iris, purple loosestrife, montbretia etc. This would probably be the ideal place to grow a gunnera which is such a feature of more formal show gardens around here but I think it is the ugliest plant going and I would never have it in my garden. For most of the afternoon the sun was shining down into this part of the garden which made working there quite a pleasure. One part of the path , which is made of stone chippings, was very silted up so I had to dig the stones out and clean them. To do this I used a wire in-tray lined with some garden mesh and let the mud wash off in the fast flowing stream. I got the whole job completed, knee is aching but I'm feeling satisfied. One more job to tick off, (I've had to add an extra section to my list as I spot more 'urgent' jobs).