Garden update - September 2007

A belated garden update. The juvenile Green Woodpecker is still a regular:














And this Wren joins the Robins as the only birds singing regularly now:














You can see from the above and below photos that the hedge has had a fantastic first year. We planted the whips on January 6th, all of them between 12 and 18 inches. The tallest is already over 8 feet high. The many trees are flourishing, and the 'commando planted' Pseudoacacia (i.e. probably not quite on our land but we hope the council put a Tree Preservation Order on it before they notice!) is also going from strength to strength. I had to jump the fence and hack back the brambles and nettles from around it twice during the summer but it's now taller than they achieve so shouldn't need too much help next year.

We've had a tree surgeon round to look at taking some dead wood off of the Lime Trees. He suggested we should lay down the hedge sometime next year, which will probably mean another year before the hedge is a substantive border and habitat but will mean a stronger and bushier end result, so we've decided rather than aggressive pruning over winter, we'll lay it down after next summer's growth.














We lost three rabbits to myxomatosis this year, the last died in the garden so I had to bury it (along with a pigeon and a collared dove, two of the recent cat kills), but one at least has survived, probably due to the supply of food and the lack of predation. The youngsters therefore should have some resistance. It was quite grim watching rabbit after rabbit succumb.

The most recent addition to the garden bird list was a (Common) Pheasant, so we're comfortably over 30 species in the garden (or above it!).