The end of mulching

The garden at Genus HQ has been somewhat neglected in recent weeks due to holidays or inclement conditions, but a day of better weather this week enabled us to get outside and get cracking on some essential seasonal work.  Mulching, something we feel we’ve been talking about for months, still needed to be finished.  A morning on the woodland beds tiptoeing around the emerging snowdrops and cutting back a few of the deciduous ferns enabled us to complete the job with a thick topcoat of compost and leaf mould.  It was exciting to see the noses of snowdrops starting to emerge, their buds just beginning to show the white of emerging petals.  Narcissi won’t be far behind - pictures from friends have shown them in full flower in the southernmost counties. 

A large Choisya adjacent to the garage and a hydrangea on the path by the back door were cut back.  Both have put on a lot of growth this year but the Choisya in particular was very big at over six feet tall and needed reigning in. 

For some time we’ve noticed that our potted Heuchera hasn’t been looking its best.  Close inspection showed a complete lack of roots - vine weevil having severed them completely.  The remains of the plant (pictured) were washed off, checked for any unwanted visitors, and repotted in fresh compost where it should reroot quite quickly in the warm confines of the greenhouse.

After filling up the bird feeders we retired to the kitchen for a well earned cup of tea and watched the antics of our two resident squirrels as they helped themselves to the buffet of peanuts and sunflower hearts we had just laid out.