It’s been a while since I’ve posted about the garden in Wales, and after a week of toil, here’s an update! Fine weather persisted, broken only by just an afternoon of heavy rain before the sun came out again. The garden certainly needs water – we’ve never seen it so dry and after several years of very little mole activity, they’re back, is this because the ground is drier than ever?

Just as quickly as Chris squashed the mounds and tunnels, the mole was reinstating them, we weren’t just waking up to new evidence – it was going on during the day too. More research needed on humane deterrents!

The small front garden was absolutely parched, with dead and dying plants as well as the remains of the freely seeding hardy geranium and alchemilla mollis – in the words of my mother in law – looking sad. Chris got to work cutting back – the rosa ‘Albertine’ and the ivy which was making its way towards the roof, whilst I dug up as much of the geranium as possible, along with some of the alchemilla and dead periwinkle. After adding compost and chicken pellets, I replaced the geranium with the non-seeding and prolific flowering geranium ‘Rozanne’ – these should fill a decent space by next year. I’ve chosen low growing verbena bonariensis ‘Lollipop’ and heuchera ‘Lipstick‘, along with a lovely osteospermum for colour, and for ground cover, erigeron karvinskianus 

The river is extremely low – still plenty of small fish jumping for flies, but also accumulated debris – Chris donned his waders and cleared the tangle of branches and also took the opportunity to remove a crop of Himalayan balsam from way downstream. There’s been a concerted effort by the local community and angling club to eradicate this nuisance plant from along the riverbanks this year, hopefully this will pay off and natural flora will have a free run.

Finally, just look at this magnificent young buzzard – visiting our neighbour’s bird table!