JANUARY:

This time of year we’re really excited to get outside – after what feels like a long winter indoors! Actually we’re still waiting for winter to come – we’re not fooled by the snowdrops and buds on the trees – we have a feeling we have some snow in store yet..

This week we’ve been pruning, and also planting cuttings of our native hedges etc so we can grow more of the same.  Last year, once we’d given our laurels a massive prune, we discovered a cherry tree growing amongst them! The poor thing was just one long branch (as you can see from the photo)- with leaves & blossom on the end.  We had to wait until winter to try and rescue it so we moved it this week. We’re really hoping it will survive the move!

Whilst pruning this week we’ve been cheering ourselves up looking for early promise of spring. Lots of buds on trees (some shrubs have already come into leaf which is rather worrying) and snowdrop, daffodil & bluebell bulbs starting to shoot. The bare patches of ground under the apple trees which we re-seeded at the start of winter are starting to green up – thanks to the massive amount of tree cuttings we laid over the top to stop the chickens scrabbling about in it!!