Following on from yesterdays post, the new fence was erected in place of the demolished hedge and I lost no time in replacing the old hedge with a mixture of Hazel, Hornbeam and Cherry unerplanted with snowdrops. It will be a while before it has thickened up enough for my birds to nest in it , but it has started shooting again after the winter so there is hope. 

My beloved Ash tree has been replaced with a Mountain Ash, which I hope the birds will get to love as much as they loved the old tree.

I used to sit under the Ash tree with my morning coffee, so I have planted a chamomile 'lawn', and placed a bench and Buddha and made  my meditation corner under the Mountain Ash.

The front hedge was a bit more of a problem to replace, the workmen had been told only to take the Ash bushes out and leave the Fuschias and all the other plants in front of the hedge. To be fare they were brilliant and treated the garden with as much respect as was possible under the circumstances. I hard pruned my flowering currant and stuck the clippings in the ground and they look as though they have taken as there are new shoots appearing, also some pieces of a bush with orange flowers whose name I have forgotten look as though they may come. A Black Elder bush was replanted there and an apple tree a neighbour had grown from seed has found a home there. Two bronze beech bushes and a clump of crocus are by the side of.

 my bench.

The workmen were told to dig my winter flowering Jasmine up under pain of death and bless them they managed to put the new fence up round her, and she has repaid their care by flowering better than ever in this her third year.

They also managed to save my Dorothy Perkins(?) rose.

It was well worth all the gallons of coffee they got through as they were much more careful in my garden than some of the others in the road.