Long Border

I went out this evening to mow the lawn, which was a frustrating experience, as I first had to replace the motor's drive belt (it snapped halfway through last week's mow, and the replacement part only arrived yesterday). Fundamentally, this is a relatively straightforward operation (although I'm not certain that all eight of the screws holding the motor unit in the body are strictly necessary), but it wasn't in practice. Four of the screws are pretty unprotected, and, as they're under the platform, they get covered with wet clippings, and inevitably rust.

The first wasn't too bad; the second yielded with some penetrating oil and care; the fourth was trickier, but came out. The third was a pig. Despite some care, the (nominally superior) Torx head stripped before the screw loosened, and I had to resort to unprofessional methods to get it out. Success eventually came by way of drilling into the head, and wedging a slightly large bit into the new hole. We shall never speak of this again.

The new drive belt then went on in about five minutes, and the mower's actually much improved. I assume that the belt was loose and worn after three year's use: the suction on the impeller is greater (which means better clipping collection), which I expect means that the power transfer is more efficient. A silver cloud to soothe my frustration at an hour lost.

There was enough light left this evening to take a photo of the long border which replaces the cotoneaster bed that took so long to remove. We started in August 2010, with a modest patch at the kitchen end: more progress that autumn (I note that this is when we uncovered the silver birch and rhododendron: they're both doing much better, and the rhododendron is starting to leaf up nearer the ground); and nearly completed it March last year. The last of it was out and shredded last June.

You can get a feel for what it was like to start with from the two photos here.

Before marking the pond, June 2011 ( Ian 2011)

The last stretch that was cleared in March 2012 (© Ian 2012)

Last year, an enormous number of foxgloves came up. As they're biennial, they were just little rosettes, of course, but this year they're all flowering. We guess that a huge seed bank accumulated under the cotoneaster, but didn't germinate because of it. With that removed, the rich soil (loads of leaf mould!) and fresh disturbance has made them all spring into life. A number of shrubs that were part buried in the rampant cotoneaster are now making a comeback, and, of course, we've added considerably to the planting over the past two years. Not everything has survived: my theory is that it's good soil, but exposed, and only those plants that can cope with the exposure live to make the most of the soil, and the rest vanish.

The Long Border (click through for bigger version) (© Ian 2013)

Foxgloves and perennials near the boundary with the pond garden (© Ian 2013)

Dutch Irises outside the dining room (© Ian 2013)

Lupin at the boundary between games lawn and pond garden (© Ian 2013)

Perennials at kitchen end: the rhododendron is the one we uncovered in November '11 (© Ian 2013)

Looking back along the Long Border (© Ian 2013)

Elsewhere in the garden, the currants and berries are swelling (there's going to be a bounty of both), and so I've sewn up the tears in the netting caused by the snow over the winter. The raspberries are laden with flowers (which are a-swarm with pollinators, pleasingly). The potatoes are doing well, although the Swift are noticeably smaller than the Lady Christl, which is leading us to suspect that we may swear off growing Earlies other than her ladyship (I'd love to know whether it's named after someone). The sweet peas are, I'm sure, growing as you watch them: even though Liz added some more tiers of strings for them at the weekend, they almost need more now. They're on the verge of flowering, too (as are the mange tout), which I'm looking forward to.