National Comment Leaving Week

Visit NaBloPoMo

OK, it seems that only Helen, Mark and I have committed ourselves to National Blog Posting Month: Helen's been going great guns, telling us all about gardening life in Toronto and whilst Mark also lives in Chippenham, his brilliant blog is very different to mine or Helen's, so also well worth a look. I'm still on holiday (back tomorrow), but as you can see, I managed to set up my posts before I went away :)

If the thought of all of that is making you feel a bit tired, how about having a go at National Comment Leaving Week instead? It could be just the thing now the nights are drawing in and it starts tomorrow, November 21st and ends on the 28th. All you need to do is leave five comments per day on other blogs and return one comment that's been left on your site lately per day. That's a total of 6 comments per day.

It could be a good way of exploring those blogs you've had bookmarked for ages but never got round to reading, or seeing how some of your old buddies you've lost touch with are getting along. If you're like me, you love receiving comments, so here's a way of making lots of people very happy over the next few days :D

What I've Learned From Mr Treeman

A line of silver birch trees brightening up a gloomy November's day along one of the paths on our estate. Just a few of the many trees that have been planted in our neighbourhood and which help to make it one of the better public spaces in Chippenham

Following my report on Chippenham's Double Whammy Chestnuts a while back, I've eventually managed to talk to someone from our local council about them. As expected, it took quite a while to track down exactly whom I should be talking to. Here's what I've learned in the process.

Who exactly I should be talking to:

• As I live in Chippenham, Wiltshire, it should be someone from Wiltshire County Council (WCC) right? Er, it depends...
• If the tree's on a main road or on a highway structure such as a roundabout, it's the responsibility of the Highways Agency, who are contactable via the county's CLARENCE hotline *
• If I want to discuss something like tree flailing which happened at the wrong time of the year, that's part of our estate's maintenance schedule. Therefore I should talk to the head of WCC's estate maintenance team
• For all other trees in public spaces, then the county's sole arborist (aka Mr Treeman) is the person to talk to

What Mr Treeman had to say:

• Nothing will be done about the horse chestnut leaf miner problem as they don't harm the tree and there's no budget available to treat them or clear up the leaves anyway
• It seems there's pretty well no budget to do anything to any of our trees, unless the problem with them constitutes a health and safety hazard. Thus there won't be any tree thinning of the overcrowded trees, nor the removal of any of the branches touching our house - for now at least. I am however, most welcome to do any of these things - including clearing up the horse chestnut leaves - myself.
• The horse chestnut trees with canker will be added to the county's observation list. The county has no policy to remove these trees as they may recover from the infection. However, they are kept under observation, because trees with canker tend to drop their limbs, which is of course a potential health and safety hazard
• The trees at the side of our house aren't a danger to the house foundations (phew)
• The broken branch on the ash tree at the side of the house will be removed because it could easily fall on top of our heads when we're in the garden and therefore constitutes a safety hazard. A month later: we're still waiting for this work to be done and gale force winds in excess of 75 miles per hour are expected as I write...
• NAH and I are most welcome to contact Mr Treeman each year and request a review of the trees at the side of the house or any others we feel need attention. However, it's unlikely that anything will get done, because there's no budget available blah, blah, blah...

Confused? Annoyed? Yes, so am I. Threadspider is too because a couple of weeks after my meeting with Mr Treeman a whole gang of youths in hi-vis descended on the top of the estate and cleared away all the lavender nestling under the trees at the main entrance, hacked away at the tree roots and left everything looking extremely tidy but rather bare for now. It looks ripe for a weed fest next year. I think they were the estate maintenance team, so we'll be contacting them shortly to see when they're coming over to finish the job they've started.

Assuming there's the budget to do so of course.

* = NAH and I are constantly amazed that the reporting of our county's road and lighting - and now it would appear roadside trees - defects would appear to be named after a cross-eyed lion: one of the animal characters in the 1960s TV series Daktari. The acronym may have a perfectly reasonable explanation (Customer Lighting And Roads ENquiry CEntre), but the choice of accompanying logo - a lion - hardly helps us to take this system seriously.

ABC Wednesday 5: R is for...

... Rickey!

I'm not really a fan of Eastenders, but I can't help but remember Bianca's call of Ricky! whenever I see Heuchera 'Lime Rickey'. This was a most popular plant in the displays at the RHS shows early last year and I also admired it at several of my lime tolerant plant workshops at The Botanic Nursery before I finally caved in and bought one from there last summer.

It now nestles in a pot in a shadier corner of my patio. This particular Heuchera is descended from the woodland line, so it's not one for full sunlight - a lot of this can make the leaves look washed out. It also likes a moist soil and produces white flowers in the summer which are attractive to bees. As you can see, it's still wearing the lime hues that it's named after at the moment. I actually value it even more during the winter. As the colder, frosty weather kicks in, the leaves will take on a more buttery, yellow colour - a most welcome trait in the darker days of December and January.

For more posts bought to you by the letter R, do visit the ABC Wednesday blog.

Musing About Moss

I have a confession: I have done absolutely nothing about the moss in my garden this year. I told Threadspider as much last week when we were admiring the patterns the moss is making in the block paving drive outside her house. It's similar in effect to the the scene pictured above from my patio, except hers is more on the diagonal.

This damascene conversion came about when I closely inspected the gravel path in the back garden early this year. A limey clay soil underneath the gravel (no membrane installed) which is waterlogged over winter and shaded for much of the day means moss is pretty much inevitable. Up close and personal it's rather beautiful, so I decided to let it stay for once and it's a lot less work as a result. I felt rather smug when Dan Pearson extolled the virtues of moss at the Hay Festival in May.

I've also let it remain in my lawn: so mine was the only one to remain green in our neighbourhood during September's drought. Patio crack infills? Yes, the moss has been allowed to stay there too. It means I'll have less dry mortar infilling to do: that job's always felt rather like Atlas rolling the stone up the hill anyway. Another type's colonising all the path edging bricks and looks like a green shaggy fur. That's fine. I'm feeling all chilled out and rather zen as a result of my change of heart.

NAH's agreed it all looks rather good, especially at this time of the year - he said it's winter interest for the patio - that was without any prompting from me either :o

However, these feelings of garden bliss do not extend to the moss on our front drive :(

Have you made any drastic changes in the way you look after your garden this year?

Enjoying the Red, Yellow and... er, Orange?

I had to go to Corsham last week to visit my dentist, but as I arrived early, I took the opportunity to have a brief exploration of the town's Millennium Garden. I've only really looked at it in passing before and whilst it wasn't the best of times of the year to have a closer look, there was still quite a bit of interest.

I was especially taken with the above Acer. Bright red stems and buttery yellow leaves did much to raise my spirits on the kind of miserable day which November seems to specialise in. I also admired its bright orange berries...

Hold on, Acers don't have berries, never mind bright orange ones!

A closer inspection revealed my error: the rowan tree nearby had lovingly adorned the Acer with lots of its berries.