My garden

Although I live on a very busy road in the city I am fortunate enough to have a decent size garden. I think it was the garden that made me want to buy the house initially. When we first came to see the house the agent couldn't open the back door into the garden so we had to see it from the bedroom window. The owners had left the house empty for some time after renting it for a while, but decided, after a bad experience with tenants, to sell the house instead. What greeted us was a lawn full of very long grass, over a foot high and a glorious 100 year old, huge apple tree as well as various other trees, a few too many considering the width of the garden is only 15 feet and about 120 feet long. When we eventually manged to see the garden properly we discovered another far smaller eating apple tree, the big one being a cooking apple, although sweeter than your usual Granny Smiths you get from the supermarket, and a delightful plum tree. There were also three domed pine trees, I think Monteray pine. We cut down two of these firs soon after we moved in to let more light into the back part of the garden and have recently cut down the last. I had waited and waited, trimming off the bottom branches each year, because I really didn't want to chop down a healthy growing tree, but it grew at an alarming rate each year, blocking out light and all the needles would fall off into my pond. So sadly we made the decision to cut it down before it became unmanageable. My neighbours were grateful too.

The apples are falling off because of the wind. A lot of them are still quite small and probably very sour but I shall use some of the ones that haven't got too bruised from falling from a height.

This is the eating apple tree but are very small and a lot of the time don't taste that nice so we usually leave them for the birds. It has done well this year though and earlier on I had a taste of one that had dropped off. It was quite nice, sweet and crunchy. The problem is with all fruit trees, if you wait till the fruit drops off they get bruised when they hit the floor or else a lot of them look like another creature has got there first and if I see a hole I don't like to eat it. You have to be really careful with the plums because on numerous occassions after cutting one in half I have found a caterpiller has got there first.

I shall have to get a move on and pick these before they go over  ripe and rot. My mum's plum tree has snapped this year and is now trailing on the ground. They lost half of it a few years ago and now the other half has broken. There are new shoots further down the trunk though so if they cut it off it should be able to start growing again. I have a second plum tree growing near the first that has self seeded and I even have some plums growing from that even though it's just shot up this year.

Not a pretty part of the garden but it will one day be used to grow vegetables. Each year it gets cleared only for it to be covered in tree and bush cuttings the following year. Other than the nettles that keep growing it is actually quite clear at the moment as we've had a couple of fires to try and get rid of a lot of the stuff. When my husband eventually gets round to making the raised beds out of the wood he brought home two years ago I think the soil will be really good to mix in with the soil I buy for the beds. This part of the garden, as with all scruffy bits of people's gardens is a haven for insects and frogs.

I seem to have had more bees than butterflies this year. Last year I had masses of butterflies.

Well I think that will do for now, I love gardens and wildlife so expect more of this in the future.