In autumn 2000 I bought one hundred Cyclamen coum corms for one of the gardens. I knew better than to plant them directly into the ground and so I potted them up into three inch pots and set them aside in a sleeper bed under a large sorbus. The mice had a few and some never rooted but the majority  did well and have been flowering beautifully for several weeks. Some are pale pink and the rest  range up to a dangerous Barbara Cartland cerise.

This week I deemed it time to plant these cyclamen in the place I had set aside for them, under a mature Magnolia soulangeana which, eighteen months ago had a large new border dug all round it. With a swathe of pink under these mossy old branches it looks a fine sight. The corms had rooted right down into the pots and I planted them  just under the soil where they should thrive undisturbed. Dry corms would have been continuously overturned by worms and birds, in fact it would have been a complete waste of time to plant them in that fashion. So I didn’t.

Daisy, my faithful jack russell no longer needs a bell around her neck. She hardly. ever leaves my side. I always wanted a dog that ‘dogged’ my footsteps and now I have one. It can get a bit tedious, I sometimes like to be alone. The builders working on the house say she is getting fat. She is not. Post puppies, she is just comfortably matronly and still has a shapely figure,she wears a worried expression some of the time, thats just motherhood for you.

I eventually managed to persuade the mower repair shop to collect two mowers and a leaf sweeper for servicing and there followed several days of dry, sunny, windy weather when the lawns dried out beautifully and there was nothing I could do but fret about being mowerless. I am never happy at this time of year until the lawns have been cut once and all the tufts and debris have been sucked away. Why didn’t I give them one mower at a time?

In the garden we have a very mature yew (about 1200 years old actually) and for many years it had a companion in the lumpy form of a multi-stemmed cupressus, attractive in it’s own way but blocking the light from the yew. The cupressus began to die (it was over 120 years old) and so I had it removed. This immediately revealed the yew was obscenely lop-sided with huge forty foot branches shooting to one side to reach the light. After much pleading I was given permission to have the yew trimmed. This happened last week. Two amiable young men arrived, professionals of course, and with an occasional interjection from me, made a beautiful job of re-shaping the tree which in itself is remarkably healthy. It has now regained it’s proper domed shape and the crown has been lifted so that the wondrous trunk can be appreciated. I am thrilled and keep walking over to take another look, it just shows that I can sometimes do the right thing.