February 18, 2008...1:14 pm
The Alpine Garden: Stage 1
It seems that ever since I put forward an argument for inaction during the winter months, I’ve been out in the garden almost every day as we’ve had such beautiful weather. Yesterday, we cancelled our planned walk into the village - and pub lunch - in order to do… yes… more gardening. After the previous day’s cycling exploits, a six mile round trek seemed a little too strenuous for saddle-sore bodies so we decided to start clearing back the site for our alpine patch.
We had an arsenal of tools at our disposal, an assortment of rakes, trowels, spades, secateurs and loppers, as we fought back against weeds, brambles and overgrown honeysuckle. A couple of hours later the battle was won: we were down to bare earth and the ‘wildlife area’ (i.e. the compost patch by the side of the drive where we dump anything too large to go into the compost bins) had grown by a foot or so. It wasn’t until we finished that we realized the potential of the plot. The area in question is roughly 5m x 6m / (17ft x 20 ft), approximately the size of my first court-yard garden, a.k.a. backyard, so it was a waste to leave it to go untended.
The final thing we did was to move the ‘annoying’ heather that I had pruned last week to a more suitable spot, between the trees next to the wall. Hopefully, pruning it will increase its chance of survival as the root system will have less mass on top to support whilst it is trying to re-establish itself. That’s the theory anyway.
Initially, we had gone out dressed in fleeces but were soon down to t-shirts in the warmth of the sun and the exertion of gardening. Meanwhile, a glance across the other side of the valley reminded us that it was still winter; the bare, black branches outlined against the frosty, white fields looked like a black and white photograph. I think we’ve completed as much preparatory work as we can for the moment and we’ll just have to be patient before we start sowing or planting outdoors.
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