My hands are battle scarred from DIY this week, having just about recovered from the wear and tear of wreath making over Christmas. Stem scratches are replaced by sanding grazes, and pine resin by the whiff of turps. I’m making the most of this tiny window of non-flowery time, by tackling long-neglected decorating jobs in the house. I’ve decided my weekly schedule is going to be like the hokey-cokey until March and seed sowing time arrives: one DIY, one garden job, one DIY, one garden job (repeat until time for DIY runs out).
Pruning jobs
First on the garden list is apple tree pruning. My sprawling Bramley was badly pruned many moons ago before we bought the house and has huge sprouting branches shooting from its main stem and their arcing trajectory is starting to shade out a lot of the left hand side of the garden. It’s been a great climbing tree for my kids as they’ve grown up, with all those badly pruned branch stumps proving to be great hand holds for hauling themselves into the leafy upper storey. I love it when it flowers, as it still does, profusely in spring, and its pretty pink blossom on the mossy gnarly branches is a kind of natural perfection. So it’s always with a slightly heavy heart that I tackle it with my pruning saw – usually only to open up the canopy to let the air through, or to lop off dead branches which aint going to fruit no more no more. But this year I’ve got to be more drastic and am bracing myself to take out a whole section. Eek. It must be done.
Then there are the roses to prune as well. Time to thin them out to let some more light into the centre, and to reduce the height of those floribundas which have got out of hand and are becoming very susceptible to wind rock loosening their roots as I’ve let them get too tall. It’s also time to cut back the lovely shell pink ‘New Dawn’ which scrambles all over the shed and seems hell bent on taking my eye out every time I approach the door to my workshop.
Making space – being practical
2017 appears to herald ‘The War on Fruit’ as my next target after the apple tree is to take out a load of redcurrant bushes at the allotment. There are about 8 of them, and I have a freezer full of their payload which increases annually as they produce more fruit than I can use. No, don’t tell me to make redcurrant jelly – I hate fruit with meat – I don’t even like apple sauce with pork! I do use them in summer puddings, and mix them into fruit crumbles, but there are more calories involved in 8 bushes worth of redcurrants than even gardening will work off…. So I think one or two bushes will more than suffice.
And besides – the patch which the redcurrants are in is long overdue a severe tackling, and all the more so as it is in a prime sunny location which could host plenty of flowers….
Better go and crack on then.
