Drastic Haircuts

Sitting down to take in the view of the garden is fatal because we end up seeing things that we could do to improve it!!!!

John has often remarked that he has little or no say in the garden which is fair because I am a bit precious about it because his cutting back skills are akin to Edward Scissorhands on speed plus he doesn't recognise what is a weed and what is not.  The other day he was ripping up some Californian Poppies which were way past their best but in his enthusiasm also removed my one solitary Japanese Larkspur that I had been nurturing.

Having said that his idea to remove the green hedge which disguised the 'Glory Hole' was a good one so when we were sitting looking at the Solanum in the corner John said that he thought it would benefit from being cut back on the right hand side so that you could see the artwork and the wall better.  I agreed but said to him he needed to have a look to see what effect that would have on the left hand side as it was about to bloom and I wanted to retain a ball shape.  He said it would be fine and chopped it off and I was left with something that looked like it had escaped from Chernobyl.  I wasn't overly amused because there was nothing for it but to cut it back completely.

The one saving grace is that the Solanum is a great survivor - this was an original plant in the garden that never got any TLC and it was like Topsy and grew an grew.

It got a severe haircut, the gardening equivalent of a Zero all Over and we will now have to wait for it to put on some new growth.  We left a couple of leaves in place just to show willing and it has a few months to pull its finger out and look beautiful for when John's Mum, Jackie and Stan are here.  

We can certainly see the wall and the artwork now!!!

Undeterred we had earmarked today for time in the garden - we rarely do this together but we started early when it was much cooler and worked our way round, John was put back on probation and wasn't allowed to wield the secateurs without supervision.

He once pruned a clematis for me when we were living in Glenthorne Avenue - it was in full flower and was resting on top of a fir tree which was collapsing under the weight.  I told him to prune carefully and leave some of the flowers in place.  He had rested the clematis growth on his step ladder and was clip clipping away when he realised he had snipped the main stem and all the flowers fell to the floor - we had an interesting stick in the garden for almost a year before it started putting on growth again.

the

The cats came to join in when John erected a brolly for some shade - Boo commandeered my kneeling mat and dustpan.  They are all struggling with the heat at the moment so shade is absolutely essential and they are eating very little during the day but demanding food at all ours of the night which is a bit of a pain to say the least.  Still apart from that they seem reasonably ok at the moment.

So we worked around the garden for a few hours until it became too hot and then we called it a day.  There is still some colour and it is looking tidier.

We asked Nicky and Mark if they wanted to come over for a coffee - they have had a bit of a trying week but by the time we had got cleaned up from gardening and had a sandwich it was afternoon so they wandered over and had a swim with us and then we relaxed in the garden with a glass of wine (or two).  Subsequently we didn't do anything else for the remainder of the day!