PLANTS IN FLOWER: Feverfew, Primula, Wintersweet, Beauty Berry, Cowslip, Christmas Hellebore (niger).I finally got round to overhauling the front border to the south of the garden early this month. There were many plants that needed dividing and the whole structure needed rearranging a little. Some parts of the border which I had planted only two years ago were proving successful - such as the silver birch tree in the middle of the bed surrounded by a nest of purple primula with masses of ladies mantle edging the front next to the grass. But other parts were not so pleasing - such as the rampant perennial geraniums and six hills giant nepeta which were tending to smother the more delicate species as the season wore on. So now while everything was dormant and when the days were clear, I took to digging up quite a few of the plants and renewing the look of the beds entirely. At the same time, it was good way of reviving the vigor of the existing plants and also removing some which had outgrown their usefulness altogether. Now, for example, I wished I had not planted the creeping flowering bramble as a ground cover a few years back, as it was turning out to be a menace to remove!
Right across the valley, the leaves are all but gone from the trees. Sweeping the driveway and collecting the leaves into builders merchant large bags has become a yearly ritual now. Having also just learnt that dried, composted bracken is a fantastic mulch for acid loving plants such as rhododendron, I have also bundled some of this into sacks - and there is masses of bracken on the land. I realize how fortunate I am to have everything so easily to hand for the garden: the stakes for the sweet peas come from the woods along with the hazel twigs for the peas; the leaves, bracken and grass clippings feed the compost along with the kitchen waste; even the ash from the woodburners can be recycled here to good effect. There are also masses of worms here - so something must be working. My composting area is far from perfect however being made up of a diverse collection of plastic compost bins, building sacks, loose piles of earth, bonfire ash and messy nettle beds. Sometime soon I would love to tidy it up a little ...