Mystery Solved

Since we bought our new garden five and a half years ago there have been constant attempts by either a fox or badger to burrow into a neighbours garden in a bank along the boundary.

After many attemts to fill in the holes we gave in and for a year or more there are just two holes and no further soil has been excavated after the first few barrow loads.

Last week Maplins sent an E-mail offering an ‘Outback Cam’ which takes images in the dark using infra-red when it senses movement. We bought one for a bit of fun, and set it up in front of the holes. We now know who was responsible!

And Then There Was Light

Since suitable weather has been with us, we have been quite busy in the garden. I have taken a host of new pictures, trying to better previous images of some plants, or increasing the galleries with pictures of new species or cultivars. The Epimedium and Magnolia galeries have probably had the most additions.

Garden work has been fairly dramatic getting rid of two 1930’s pear trees which had been covered in huge climbers. One of which had been the support for a male Kiwi Fruit and a massive ivy called Hedera colchica ‘Pady’s Pride’ has now gone and the stump dug out and bamboos planted in their place. The ivy had effectively turned the tree into an evergreen pillar ten feet wide and perhaps twenty five feet tall. trying to get hold of adjacent trees.Out of the top of this, Kiwi vines grew out in all directions like a gigantic hydra,

Now we are well on the way through the next pear tree this time covered in Clematis montana and Celastrus scandens. The Celastrus was doing the same as the Kiwi, trying to grapple its way into other trees. Both the climbers have multiple trunks at ground level approaching three inches thick, but they must be around forty years old.

The original reason for removing these trees and climbers was to let sun light in from the East to the new ‘Summer Garden’, but probably the best result is going to be new views of quite a few Magnolias that didn’t exist before. Some new pictures in the Magnolias gallery have been taken from this new direction. It hasn’t been the best of years for them, due to the indifferent weather starting almost a year ago. I have labeled some of the images of Magnolias with 2013, because I don’t think the colours are as rich as usual.

I have taken the opportunity of the ladder up the second pear tree, to take some never to be repeated aerial images.

The shredding of the tangled mass of Celastrus has been a fairly awful task and digging out the roots is hard work as they have been burried over the years with two feet of soil. Therefore two foot plus has to be dug away before you reach any roots to be cut.