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Four Doors Away

Xela

By Xela

4 comments


No prizes for guessing who visited the back garden at Shenstone on Sunday.
Those have to be muntjac footprints in the snow. As you can see, what used to be a vegetable patch at the bottom of the garden has become overgrown with brambles. They have become so dense that only wildlife can penetrate, ideal cover for a munching muntjac. Last autumn I cleared the brambles from the southern half of the vegetable garden to stop them spreading into the flower bed in front. They had also formed a thicket around the flowering cherry in the foreground. In the autumn I cleared the brambles below the tree’s branches and made a bed there instead. The tree was planted by my neighbour to mark the last resting place of Samantha,his first pyrennean mountain dog. It is a double white flowering cherry so in the Spring it is a ball of fluffy white, just as Samantha had been. Paul and I agreed that it would be fitting to plant the bed with white flowering plants. I started with a Christmas rose, a white heather and a white polyanthus.They have been in flower all winter. To these I added white crocuses, tulips with a hint of pink, paper-white narcissus and scilla bulbs. Unfortunately the muntjac have decapitated most of them before they have had a chance to bloom. More recently I have augmented the evergreen plants with a white hebe, a pieris and Hutchinsia ( Chamois Cress). Being young plants they are all quite small and looking a bit lost at the moment but I hope in due course they will thrive and grow to be joined by other suitable white flowering plants to make it a feature of the garden all year round.
Paul’s workshop is at the bottom of the garden and a well worn path meanders its way there from the kitchen door, it can be made out by the solar lights edging it.
In the flower bed half way across the garden are three or four very old red rose bushes. A few polyanthus have survived there as well, but everything else that may have grown there seems to have been smothered by white comfrey.
Shenstone was originally a farmhouse, my house was built on what used to be the orchard. The front hedge is primarily hazel with a bit of holly in it. Paul’s passion for automobiles dominates the front garden now, he has an interesting collection of cars originating from such far flung places as the States and Checkoslovakia. Sunbeam Alpines are his first love, he completed the Pirelli Classic Car Marathon around Europe in the little red one in 1991. It may look as though only vehicles feature in the front garden, but Paul is very proud of his wisteria which we planted two years ago. Judging by the buds on it this year it should be just dripping with flowers. He was also keen to have a pampas grass, so three years ago I gave him one which has gone from strength to strength opposite the front door.

More blog posts by Xela

Previous post: A snowy blanket in April

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Comments

 

SNOW!! Your entry has made me nostalgic for snow and hot chocolate...Just one question, though - what is a muntjac? I've never heard of it ?!

10 Apr, 2008

 

Take a look at my blog 'Deer Oh Deer' where you will find pictures of one caught red-handed!

10 Apr, 2008

 

Hi Xela just catching up with a few blogs and difficult isnt it ?Must be torn between the pleasure of seeing a wild animal so close and their destructive potential in your garden.Hopefully it was the cold weather that brought him - had to be male such a messy eater- have you heard them bark?
We get Red Deer here and the stags are pretty impressive
on my way to work once noticed a herd of cows running almost stampeding around the edges of their enclosure. Wondered what had spooked them in their midst was a huge stag - he waited for a gap between them and elegantly sprung over a huge fence .Never have your camera at these times do you?

11 Apr, 2008

 

Ah!! A type of deer...they do seem to be quite hungry!

15 Apr, 2008

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