a long deferred job finally accomplished

Today I finished digging out the rootball of a defunct Hebe salicifolia.  That one sentence describes how I spent an entire day of my life.  It was a large shrub, that must have grown to reach 3m high and wide over the years.  I was beginning to think that it was not looking so comely as it had, and that it was time to start thinking about a replacement, when the 2009-10 winter killed a lot of the branches without killing the entire plant outright.  I lopped most of them off, but in the mass of clearing up required after that winter never got round to tackling the roots (about my least favourite gardening task).  Last winter damaged it some more, but still without killing it.  Yesterday and today I ceased to put off the dread deed any longer.  The hebe was in an open border with nothing large or precious too close to it, and room to swing a pickaxe, but even so after the first hour I thought the job was going to take the rest of the season.  When I finally chopped through the bottom of the rootball I was left with a lump of soil and roots approximately 1m by 60cm by 40cm, and had to summon help to heave it out of the hole.  It took the rest of the afternoon to chisel soil off the rootball, so that I wouldn't be left with a hole in the ground 1m by 60cm by 40cm, and so that the great ball of roots had some hope of burning on the bonfire.

The space vacated by the hebe will provide a new home for a replacement Prunus x subhirtella 'Autumnalis'.  Then I've got plans for a burnt orange colour scheme.  Burnt orange doesn't especially go with palest pink cherry flowers, but that's fine because they'll happen in different seasons.  There is a berberis called 'Orange Rocket' that has completely fabulous dark orange new leaves, which I fell for as soon as I saw it, and think will go very well next to the purple leaved cotinus that is finally starting to make some size, after a painfully slow start.  Then there is a modern rose called 'Hot Chocolate', with burnt orange flowers which I find completely delightful.  The name is a pity, and it was declared novelty rose of the year a while back, which is a bit embarassing.  The soil in that bed is so light and sandy and lacking in structure that I feel a bit optimistic asking the poor rose to grow in it, but I can apply loads of organic material.  Every year, for the rest of our mutual existence.  A rose grower at the Hampton Court Flower Show last year told me that 'Hot Chocolate' was a good doer, which may be the case, or he may have been hoping to sell me some.  Then there are some Alchemilla mollis to come out, which I feel sad about as I originally raised them from seed, but I have seen how they look when they are growing well and mine don't look like that.  It really is too dry for them.  Also some Lychnis coronaria, which has committed the opposite crime of doing too well.  It seeds like the devil in that bed, and forms choking mats of leaf and root that seem to starve and suffocate all  neighbouring plants.  Truly gardeners are never satisfied.