starting to dig

I went to see if the wire I renewed on Tuesday was still there, and it hasn't been torn down by militant wildlife yet.  So far, so good.

I spent most of the day digging over the area where the Hebe salicifolia used to be.  This is one case where my normal no-dig policy doesn't apply, as the ground is full of hebe roots, a creeping weed grass species that's got in there, self-seeded geraniums, Muscari and other small bulbs, and the roots of the ivy hedge that surrounds the bed.  The ivy is a mixed blessing.  The bed when first planted didn't have a hedge, or anything else, surrounding it, but the rabbits ate so many plants I realised that wire netting was a must.  This did the job of keeping the rabbits out, but looked hideous itself.  The solution seemed to be to hide it inside a hedge, but I balked at the cost of buying that much box and the ongoing labour of clipping it, so I settled on ivy.  The ivy was terribly slow to get going, which was partly because ivy generally takes a season to settle, and partly because the soil was so terrible that everything took a long time to start moving.  It did eventually grow, and continues to do so.  The downside is that it wants to run out across the surrounding soil as much as it wants to climb, and cutting back ivy running and rooting into the ground is probably as big a job as trimming a box hedge would be.  The bed is long although relatively narrow, curving around the side of the drive, so although I haven't measured it (I suppose I must have done when I ordered the ivy but have since forgotten the answer) I guess it is at least 30m all the way round.  That's an awful lot of cutting back, which has to be done several times a year.  When clipped it looks rather fun, in a quirky way, bulging gently like a cloud-pruned hedge, and bits of it have now matured and want to flower, which adds character.  In fact I like the look of it.  But it is a lot of work.  I smile inwardly when I hear Bunny Guinness advocating ivy on wire netting as a good narrow evergreen hedge, and wonder if she has ever tried maintaining one.  The ivy roots do go out a considerable way from the hedge, and are sucking water and nutrition from the already poor soil.  I dug quite a lot out to give the new planting a sporting chance.  I don't want to kill the hedge, but previous attempts at eradicating ivy have made me think it doesn't give up that easily.  Running roots are one drawback of hedges.  Privet is the notorious species, but yew roots are dense and far-travelling too.

I often listen to the radio while gardening, especially for maintenance tasks like weeding.  For setting out new planting and tricky bits of pruning it is too distracting, like having the radio on in the car while trying to do a difficult stretch of navigation.  One of the advantages of the next door neighbours being a two minute walk down the lane is that I can listen on a proper radio, instead of earphones, which I detest wearing, and there is always a catastrophe at some point with the cord between the radio and the headphones.  This does mean that bits of the garden get associated with particular events on the news, or a piece of music, or a play.  I'll now be associating the middle of the long bed with the Japanese nuclear power station emergency, and the row about the possible Libyan no-fly zone.  That bit of border must have a strange resonance with world events, as it is also associated with the BBC's wall to wall coverage of the death of Princess Diana.

I heard from my Japanese gardening friend, who told me that she was extremely safe, and they must now think how to help the victims of the earthquake and tsunami.  I greatly admire her fortitude.