Rain stopped play

Yesterday was an almost rain-free day when we both did a huge amount of gardening, some more this morning when it just mizzled a bit now and again, but now - not quite 3 pm - the rain is back in force.  It would be no fun being in the garden in the wet, the ducks are in hiding, so I thought I'd post a blog entry with some pictures.



John is very pleased with his tomato crop.  This morning he asked me to take a photo of one particular bunch of large tomatoes which are really a 'small' variety, this one:





There is plenty going on in the upper greenhouse, too; John has chopped back the sweet peas severely, and now you can see how well the grapes are doing:

After the "funny" weather we've been having this year the growth of all plants has been getting out of hand, we were being overwhelmed with greenery.  So when we finally tore ourselves away from the TV after the Olympics I decided on some drastic action and started with the overgrown drive - Annie and Carl will confirm that it was difficult to get a car past the growth, the right hand track so clearly visible in the left hand picture below from early April could not be seen any more  -                                  
                                                                                                                               but you can again now:

I also "crown lifted" the holly tree at the top of the drive up to the white line I've drawn, the lower branches were hitting us as we walked by.
The pyracantha just in front of it looked like a huge hedgehog, so I cut away all non berry bearing shoots.  The cotoneaster [white arrow points to it] which I've spent endless hours pruning into "clouds" I've taken out altogether, it was just too much work for little reward.  The beech hedge near the road is due for a cut now and the wild rose against the house front for a severe chop!             

We gave similar treatment to the lonicera I'd trimmed into the shape of a bench in the back garden, the arrow points it out in this photo from the end of April:

You can hardly see the shape of it in this recent picture on the left - it's gone now as you can see on the right.

Hidden in that wilderness on the left was also a prickly mahonia totally overgrown with an even more prickly and thorny wild rose, both of which I'd managed to dig out at the end of last week.  John deserves applause for managing to dig out the "bench" lonicera as well as the 11cm diameter stump of a self-seeded cherry tree which I'd chopped down a couple of years ago.  The area, where the wheel barrows are standing, looks open now.  When we've tidied it up we intend to grass it over.

 

The marauding drakes from last year have calmed down a little now, I don't often hear the shrieks of the pursued.  From what I've seen, Jay-Z and Joseph [mainly, Tuts, Georgie and Ben to a lesser extent] chase Gertie and Billie rather than the youngsters, it's as if they wanted to punish them for absenting themselves from them for months.

Passing by the little pond to take pictures in the greenhouses I saw the 11 standing and watching:

But when I went in for lunch I caught them through the garage window, setting out on a forage in the vegetable beds:

 

I didn't see anything of the 13 - they must have been under the weeping birch nearby - apart from Purdy and Honey [again!] resting near the laurel:

 John is just setting off on another trip to the bonfire he lit some days ago and on which he's been burning several bags of the soiled wood shavings from the duck huts as well as about 6 huge builders' bags full of chopped greenery and dug out shrubs - he's developed a great knack of dragging the bags behind his mower tractor!