Pear Tree Cottage: Thursday turned into Saturday!
... and after fern clearance.
A surprisingly sunny dry day for an entire day's garden work! The last 4 Saturdays have either been glacial or glacial and wet! today, we were able to get on with jobs is reasonable comfort. After sorting out a log avalanche, the first job was barrowing some wood chip (kindly brought by Chris) down to Nutberry Noak and the Woodland Border path. Next up: Fernery clearance with all last year's fronds removed. Not exactly a five minute job but rewarding and their dead and dying fronds lay flat and straggly hiding Cyclamen, Hellebores and Snowdrops alike.
I left this job a little too late last year and it was difficult removing the dead fronds with new ones emerging and unfurling. It looked really tidy when we'd finished. We moved 4 or 5 ferns down to the lower border before moving on to emptying the compost bay. Well, I have to confess that I rather left that to Chris as it was so wet and heavy - especially after all the rain we've had. Instead, I carried on deadheading borders and filled another 3 barrows with much lighter loads while Chris mulched hedges, borders, back filled new path edges until it was too dark to carry on...........drinkies time!