The Garden Bird: tidy, tidy, tidy

Heale this week has been about trying to tidy the gardens before it is time to tidy them again! Summer and growth is well under way. We spent most of one day edging, weeding and generally making sure the Peto pond beds by the house looked good and boy do they look good! We edged another border which had overgrown and trimmed a Choisya back to allow a better pathway through past the house (and hopefully it will flower again).

The Box parterres needed a hedge trim and that had three of us on the job, two to hedge trim and one clearing up trimmings with a rake/leaf blower.

Michael showed me a neat trick of using a bamboo cane as a guide to how low to trim the top of the hedge. Then you move the cane to your next hedge and trim to the same height and with any luck they are all fairly uniform by the end. Very handy to learn!

Great to be using machines too, boys love toys but us girls don't use them as much generally and so need the practice. They are noisy, smelly and heavy but quick. I want a hedge trimmer now!

I also helped to maintain the single cordon Sweet peas which are being checked and cropped twice weekly now. We remove tendrils, side shoots and blind stems (ones with no flower) and then we crop the flowers for the house, 96 stems one day this week! What a wonderful smell.

It is the time for all the Roses to be showing off and the Hybrid Musks are still going. I thought I wouldn't get to see them again. Heale has many huge climbing Roses through various trees. One I remember was Rosa bobby james and Rosa 'Sally Homes' which flowers in big heavy clusters.

Working with Michael in the gardens you get to discover all sorts of things you wouldn't ordinarily notice. The Tulip tree which I have been merrily walking past, weeding by and walking under has flowered and our native Iris foetidissima was hiding amongst grass near the river.