Bend ze knees, bend ze knees!

Yesterday's gardening was a matter of necessity.  We had a call on Friday afternoon from the tarmac man to ask if he could re-surface the drive on Monday, so I'd to chop back some of the shrubs that were overhanging the edging blocks.  This of course meant getting down on the knees, which is no longer the easiest of tasks.  Well, the box that I've trained into something close to a sphere is now chopped back, and Mr Tarmac will be threatened with dire personal consequences if it is damaged.  The hebes on the other side are pretty well at the stage at which they need hoiking up and replacing, particularly now that the chopping back has exposed their legginess.

One of the bits of box that I'd to take out had layered itself, so is now in a pot in the cold frame, and I hope that the roots weren't too badly damaged when I hauled it out.  Martyn suggested that I train the box into the phallic shape so beloved of the inhabitants of the Hautes Corbières.  I think, given the rate at which box grows, that might take rather more years than I've got left, but I hope eventually to enter into the spirit of the game with a more or less spherical box bush either side of the drive....

Anyway, there are now pots of box and hebe cuttings in the cold frame.  It was good to see, while I was out there, that the potentilla cuttings have survived the winter.  (So far: we had a shower of hail this morning!)  Not that I deserve success, really: OK, I paid for the orange one, and the primrose one came from Gladys's garden in Tonbridge, authorised, but the white and yellow ones were nicked, respectively, from parent plants in the shrubbery in front of the Royal Mail sorting office, and Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service.  Come to think of it, this last was also the source of one of the hebes.

The grass remains uncut, and the roses mostly unpruned.  Those that I have pruned have responded well, with lots of strong buds.  You won't be surprised when, in a few weeks' time, I start grizzling about greenfly.  Tasks for the coming days will be to get round the unpruned roses, chop back the penstemons, haul out the potentilla that is lousy with pencil grass and maybe make a start on a weed and bramble infested border down the left hand side.  I hope the knees become a shade more co-operative before too long.  Still, the one I got knifed last September is finally settling down and letting me move around without pain most of the time.  Famous Last Words...