I thought I was going to be able to spend all day working in the garden, but after the first hour discovered that I'd lost my pruning saw. I checked the garage where I normally dump tools in frequent use, and couldn't see it there. The garage has got pretty untidy, and it's not beyond the bounds of probability that the saw will turn up in due course, but that wasn't much consolation when I wanted to use it immediately. I looked in the hall, and the greenhouse, and checked in case the Systems Administrator had had it. I didn't think the SA had been using it, but you never know, since the SA has been trimming the Eleagnus hedge and might have decided to take an over-prominent branch right out. I searched again in the garage, and tried to remember what I'd been pruning recently, and looked around the edges of the bottom lawn, and the border near the shrub rose 'Nevada', but couldn't find the saw doing a babes-in-the-wood act among the fallen rose petals.
I came to the regretful conclusion that I'd lost it, or rather left it somewhere in over nearly an acre of ground and an untidy house. It would presumably turn up eventually, though possibly unusably rusty if it spent too long outside first. In the meantime I needed another. I drove off to B&Q, feeling rather guilty that I was not supporting the Clacton Garden Centre, only B&Q is about four miles away, most of it on dual carriageway, while the Clacton shop is fourteen miles away, on winding roads. Shopping in B&Q is generally a depressing experience, and for several alarming minutes I thought they'd stopped stocking pruning saws, before managing to find the right aisle. B&Q stocks Fiskar, which is a very good brand, and I use one of their own brand trowels, which has proved more durable and comfortable than its arty, wooden handled and stainless steel bladed predecessors. However, they have converted all except about two tills to self-service, and the whole process of paying is unutterably dismal. The young man ahead of me in the queue trying to buy three tins of paint needed the help of an unsmiling assistant to work the scanner, and when it was my turn I saw why, as I too needed guidance to operate the thing, after she'd had to come and authorise the transaction at all by confirming that I was old enough to buy a sharp instrument like a Fiskar 25 centimetre retractable pruning saw.
Armed with my new saw, I trimmed a couple of low hanging branches from 'Tai Haku'. They biff the SA in the face while mowing the lawn, and I'd promised to lift the crown a little, with the proviso that this should be done in high summer when the risk of silver leaf disease was least. You are generally advised not to keep hacking at cherries or plums in case you admit infection, but if you have to then late June or July is the recommended time. I regard it as the best default time to prune anything that I'm not sure when to do otherwise, reasoning that the spring surge of sap has finished so it shouldn't bleed too badly, while there is plenty of time for it to start healing before winter really sets in. It's a theory I've come up with for myself, rather than learning it as received wisdom from the books, but I can't fault my logic.
In the garden the roses are opening, a good month late, and the tall, pale yellow Cephalaria gigantea is in full bloom. This is an agreeable perennial with scabious-like flowers, which will self seed usefully but not too much if allowed to. I have it on vile clay, and it seems to like it. The Aquilegia, Brunnera, Centaurea montana and white form of Camassia are virtually over, and I started dead-heading them, since they too will seed themselves generously and while I like them I don't want any more. Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus is out. This is a delightful day lily with small, highly scented yellow flowers, which despite its earliness seems to escape the hemerocallis gall mite that has plagued my other early varieties in recent years. Just along from it is a pale yellow iris, whose name I've forgotten, also full out and looking cool and poised.
In the island bed the pink Robinia hispida is blooming cheerfully, but keeps collapsing. It is a desperately brittle shrub, and I'd like to know what it does in the wild. The boss has his tied against a wall, but bits still break off. Coronilla varia is not yet out, but has spread so far that I'm starting to wonder if it is going to turn out to be a noxious weed. On the other hand its pink flowers are pretty, and beloved of bees, and I do want things to cover the ground. When I'd doing the winter maintenance I'd better pull out some of its running roots to limit its spread. It is mingling with, and slightly hiding, the foxy flavoured Phuopsis stylosa, which is in full bloom, and is doing so well in a dry border that I will probably plant more. Maybe it comes from seed. Christopher Lloyd regarded the rank smell of its foliage as reason not to grow it, but it only smells strongly when bruised, so as long as you don't trample on it there shouldn't be a problem.
Also flowering are Astrantia, foxgloves, a dark red ornamental thistle, and a little Orlaya grandiflora but not as much as I'd like. The Orlaya resents transplanting and grows best when self-seeded, then dies after flowering, but I don't seem to have had many seedlings this year. I think the conditions are getting too crowded in the end of the bed where it was.
The new saw is much sharper than the old. I had been thinking that I was going to need a new one, and am left wondering whether I subconsciously lost the last one deliberately.
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