In an effort to clear my head after a spell of intensive studying, I took Saturday afternoon off to do some jobs in the garden. The first job was to harvest my Jerusalem artichokes (see next post).

The second was to have a second attempt at removing the stump left behind when I cut down the cotoneaster in the Lavender Border in January.

My husband started with the pruning saw, moved on to his wood saw, tried a hammer and chisel, and finally – successfully – used a bowsaw.

In a few weeks, he’ll drill some holes in the stump and I’ll pack them with Epsom salts as I don’t want to use Roundup or other chemicals. Has anyone tried the Epsom Salts method, and with what degree of success? I assume I should cover it with plastic to stop the salts from washing away.

Remember this fuchsia at the other end of the Lavender Border? I decided it was getting too tall and leggy so gave it a severe pruning hoping to make it into a lollipop.

As all the new growth started from the base of the plant, the bare stem just looked silly. So I cut it off and nipped back some of the side growth.

I decided to move the spring bulb pots again. Here, they should receive full sun for much of the day, which should help the ‘Pickwick’ crocus, the anemones (Blanda blue and white) and fritilleries

I usually sow seeds much to early, and they don’t – as a rule – do very well. But it is almost the middle of March and each of these seed packets indicated that March was one of the suitable months, so here goes. I used home-made sifted compost which was slightly damp to the touch, so I haven’t watered them yet. The pots are sitting in a seed tray which is balanced on a bed of gravel, so when I do water (with tap water, not rainwater, I can avoid overwatering.

The seed packets were just to remind me what was in each pot until I could print-off the top two images for reference purposes (as long as I don’t turn the tray 180 degrees).

I’ve also prepared some root trainers for sowing tomato seeds, but they’ll be the subject of a separate post.