trouble with suckers

The rabbits haven't yet eaten my newly planted Hedychium and Hemerocallis in the meadow.  I sprayed them lavishly with Grazers after planting them out, and took some comfort in the fact that in the formal garden the resident bunnies haven't touched the mature leaves of any of the daylilies. They had a nibble at the emerging foliage back in the winter, but nothing since.  They don't seem at all interested in Crocosmia, so I'm hoping that my plantings of 'Lucifer' will be safe.  This afternoon I gave everything a second dose of Grazers.

Now I'm bashing my way up the bed foot by foot.  It isn't actually too weedy.  There are clumps of the dratted rye grass, and tree seedlings, and moss, which indicates that the soil lacks fertility, but not a huge variety of weeds.  The main nuisance is the nettles, and the suckers sprouting from the hedge.  The nettles are coming up quite nicely after the rain.  They are not established matted patches, which are a different and altogether more difficult proposition, but individual plants maybe a year old.  If I get my fork in under the stems and lift the central portion of the root system, the long running roots can be pulled out of the soil in a satisfying fashion.  Nettle roots are bright yellow, and stringy rather than fleshy.

The suckers are the worst problem.  The culprit is the common dogwood, Cornus sanguinea.  It's generally included as a component of native hedging mixtures, indeed the plant centre where I used to work sold it every year.  And yes, it is native and it is good for wildlife and it has attractive autumn colour.  What nobody mentions is that it spreads like crazy, seeding lavishly, suckering, and sending out long floppy side branches that root where they touch the ground.  Hawthorn is a relatively well behaved hedging plant, one that will grow large but can be kept clipped to a neat shape if you have the time and the inclination.  You will find the odd small hawthorn seedling around the place and that will be it.  Dogwood is incontinent.

I pulled up the smaller suckers by hand.  They'll be back, as the dogwood's root system spreads far beyond the thickness of the hedge and I'm not about to grub the hedge out.  The bigger ones have turned into witches brooms where twenty stems sprouted from each stump of a large sucker that I cut down in the winter when I was trimming the hedge.  I have had to resort to the pick axe to chop out their bases one by one, though it's going to be a slow job getting all the way to the end of the meadow, and there are some tricky stumps tucked in among shrubs I want to keep, where it's going to be difficult to get a proper swing at them with the pick axe.  I'm sure small suckers will soon regrow, so I need to tackle them as they appear and not let them turn into full size shrubs.  I have come to the conclusion that there are two sorts of gardener, those who use a pick axe when gardening, and those who don't.

Addendum  The courgette and cheese bake and the cherry tart were both very well received, so I'll add them to the repertoire.  I'm quite happy taking the time to prepare fiddly recipes provided whoever's eating it makes the right appreciative noises.