{"id":6079,"date":"2021-03-07T19:41:21","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T19:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kergudon.com\/?p=6079"},"modified":"2021-03-07T19:43:27","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T19:43:27","slug":"sunday-07-march-marching-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/sunday-07-march-marching-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday 07 March – Marching forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where did that week go?!  Time seems to take on an odd form at Kergudon.  Guests often comment on how time passes at a slow, leisurely pace when they are relaxing and enjoying there time here.  For us, we seem to already be hurtling through the year and the weeks are passing quicker and quicker!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the weather being pretty decent for much of the week we spent most of our time outside.  For me this was focussed on one area on the west side of the orchard \u2013 and mowing the grass twice!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The talus on the west side of the orchard (we still call it that despite there only being one apple tree left and that too is on the \u2018to fell\u2019 list!) is where we had a number of large sycamores felled in autumn 2019<\/a>.\u00a0 When we arrived, under the sycamores were a bank of large hydrangeas that had grown enormous despite being robbed of light from above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hydrangeas are very popular plants here as they thrive in the conditions and, here being slate and acidic soil, they can be a stunning blue colour.  In the first year we managed to cut them hard back and planted a couple of other ericaceous shrubs including camelias and rhododendrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The advantage of them being so huge before was that they helped suppress the weeds underneath but also prevented any sort of hedge growing on the boundary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since their first hard cutback we haven\u2019t managed to be consistent in controlling them each spring.\u00a0 However, being a bit smaller the cow parsley and bramble had started to establish themselves in the bed \u2013 the bramble being helped by long shoots growing from our neighbour\u2019s field which root easily where they make contact with the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Boundary talus to clear and cut the hydrangeas<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Where the hydrangeas had grown large (and they do quickly) they had smothered the new shrubs we had planted so they hadn\u2019t grown very much or very evenly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The weather here does seem to allow things to grow quickly so, as well as the hydrangeas getting large again, the sycamore stumps had sprouted hundreds of new shoots and a forest of sycamore seedlings had germinated.\u00a0 Thankfully, most of the lonicera plants<\/a> we had planted during the first confinement last year seem to have established and will become a decent hedge in years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My principal effort was spent clearing through this bed, cutting back the hydrangeas; digging out as much of the bramble as I could; cutting the new shoots from the sycamore stumps and shaping the hedging (such as it is) on the talus.\u00a0 As long as we manage to keep on top of the bed and tidy it up a couple of times a year, it should be become an attractive boundary to the garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n