Sun / Frost / Trees / Heathers

Diary

Posted: Monday 20 January, 2025

by Rosemary at 9:13am in Smallholding 71 comments Add your own

Monday 13^th January

I think we had a bit of rain overnight – but much milder. Windy, so making it feel a bit raw. Showed 11C on the car this morning. Overcast for most of the day.

Dan weeded what will be the heather bed – we have 150 heathers to plant this week, so I’m planning to make a start tomorrow.

The cats are enjoying what they hope is a cat gym. It’s not.

cat-gym Cat gym.

Tuesday 14^th January

Murdo here, so he and Dan cracked on with the tree planting in the spinney. First one tree.

tree First tree in the Spinney.

Then by knocking off time, a hundred silver birch and ten crab apple.

spinney Then there were a hundred.

I marked out a 1mx1m grid on the heather bed and laid out the plants. We bought 150 mixed; there are sixteen varieties, but the numbers of each are quite variable. Those that numbered fewer than 5, we’ll buy more to bring them up to a square metres worth.

There’s a small ornamental cherry in there and a willow, but I think I’ll take the cherry out and put it in a pot. Tomorrow, I might swing by Ashbrook and see if I can buy a couple of hebes, before I plant the bed up.

There are some bare bits but the heather plants are sitting closer than the final planting distance. Bought them from ScotPlants – they look nice and healthy.

heathers Draft heather bed.

Wednesday 15^th January

Dry, mild. Most of the day on desk work.

Thursday 16^th January

Murdo here today, so he and Dan cracked on with tree planting. Not quite finished but getting there.

Picked our car up from the dealership, where hopefully it has finally been repaired. I hate driving in the dark.

Friday 17^th January

Really windy, but quite mild. Then the sun got out.

sun Lovely morning.

Dan is choked with the cold and feels pretty rough.

Strange seeing the space where the livestock trailer was parked up.

space Where the trailer was.

Saturday 18^th

Another lovely day; cooler than of late but bright sunshine. Dan has the lurgy. Lots of viruses around. His pharmacy is in the kitchen.

toddies Hot toddies.

We managed to pop up to The Hub for an hour to move the furniture in preparation for painting next week, then he was in front of the fire for the rest of the day.

Sunday 19^th January

We have a light frost – that wasn’t forecast. Until it thawed, Dan sorted through some boxes of “tech” stuff, in preparation for sale, donating or recycling. Despite our best efforts, we still seem to accumulate “stuff”.

Turned into a relaxing day. Heathers in early next week definitely.

Previous « ORFC / Bonfire / Thaw
Next Storm Eowyn »

Comments

Please use the form below to leave a comment. All fields are required unless otherwise indicated, and your email address will not be displayed or shared.