The Easter Weekend gave us chance to renew an area in our cottage garden which had become overgrown by a rampant evergreen honeysuckle climbing up a wooden arbour and from there into a laburnum. Indeed, it threatened the laburnum itself as well as all the other plants on an arbour, and all those trying to survive beneath the laburnum. An unusual arrow leaved ivy seemed to be the main survivor as ground cover along with some sweet cicely, aconites and sweet woodruff.
We cut down all twenty five feet of the rampaging evergreen honeysuckle and took it out by its roots. Then we reduced two other honeysuckles growing on the arbour to just a metre hoping they would regrow and, in time, once more provide a fragrant entrance to the cottage garden.We also thinned part of the laburnum and removed most of the ivy. The ground below was very very dry so we added two big loads of juicy, wormy, home made compost and now its ready for planting.
Various hellebores, aquilega, foxgloves, lily of the valley, geraniums and ferns will all be happy here, so I plan to split many of these plants from other areas of the garden or retrieve seedlings. Its always fun having a new area to plant up and over the next two weeks I should have filled the gaps although I might leave one or two just in case there are any special delights to buy at Malvern Show!
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