bunn

Everything is growing with terrifying speed. I mowed on Saturday, and mowed one of the (small) lawns again on Tues, and still filled the mower hopper thing twice (this is not normal, but I notice that due to last year's extreme neglect I have a lot of very broad-leaved grasses in that lawn, and have lost many of the wildflowers, so I'm going to try and keep on top of it more this year).

I have planted 2 Viticella clematis, Polish Spirit and Mary Rose, one to grow up the apple tree that has recently been freed from huge amounts of shrubbery, and the other to grow up the twisted willow next to it. In theory, these should not put too much strain on the trees as they will be cut back to about a foot tall each year.

I would really like to make the area around those trees into lawn, but I am a bit worried it may be too rough to lawnify itself if I just mow it. I am not sure I can be bothered to dig it all over and flatten it properly though, given that it's sloping, stony and absolutely crammed with tree roots. The easy option would be more shrubs, but that would just put me back where I was, eventually. That middle lawn is the one the hounds zoom on, and I'd quite like to keep the width open for them. I wonder if I could smooth something over the top to create a more even and mowable surface....

We had a burning, and disposed of a great deal of biomass in a most satisfactory manner. I'm thinking I might now move the bonfire location, as it's right in the middle of the upper garden and somewhat dominates the whole area.

The camassias naturalised into the grass of the upper garden are now almost over, but looked great while they were going. Note to self: buy more camassia bulbs.

I haven't yet planted out my birthday shrubs, but I really should get onto that. This evening, if I have time, I plan to clear out the last of the compost from the old heap, and move some of the perilously piled high composting material from the currently-new heap into that composter. I have 2 4-ft square composters, and it's not enough....

The greenhouse still needs clearing and sorting out, but it's been too hot for that. Though the cats seem to enjoy sitting in there, even when it's uncomfortably warm, even outside the glass!

Edit: on considering this matter, I need to buy topsoil and cover the aggly area in that, then sow grass and mow it. Buying topsoil seems to be easy to do online, but buying topsoil online somehow seems like a really weird thing to do. I don't know why.