On a summer morning before breakfast

...but after a "dew bit" of tea and an oaty date slice, I chucked on some old clothes and went out to cut back the periwinkles (Vinca major) that grow on the front terrace. They had become overgrown and were not flowering all that well. Hardly surprising when they have wedged their roots into what is essentially little more than gravel. Grassy gravel, as you can see.

The operation (this is only the second time I've done it in eight years) required first a scythe, then secateurs, Indian weeding blade, rakes and a wheelbarrow. I've had my Indian weeding blade for many years and it's one of the most useful garden tools I have. You can buy similar-looking things here now but this one was hand-made in India. I can't remember what online merchant I bought it through nor what its Indian name was. Anyway, it's gey nifty and you can see how the blade is secured right through the handle so it can't work loose.

Lens cap to give scale; the tool is about a foot long

That rusty bit of fluff is the remains of a string hanging loop

You can use the blade in narrow places, as you can see in the pic above. You can also use it like a hoe by pushing the outer curve of the blade to and fro, and it works as a mini sickle too. The curve in the blade is great for hooking under stubborn roots to help yank weeds out.

Anyway, a couple of dozen midge bites and one tick in my knee later, which is not bad for a summer stint of an hour and a bit, I'd got to the bit by the front door where periwinkle runners had inserted themselves into small spaces and were making an attempt to invade the house. Their next ploy would be to take root in the old coir doormat.

It was time by now, since I'd got the camera out, to look about me. Alongside the front doorstep is the Irrepressible Rose and its accompanying self-planted (like so much at the Boggy Brae) Lady Fern (Athyrium filix-femina) which is currently 'weighing in' at a metre tall and one and a half metres wide. I cut it right back every year as it gets a bit tatty in winter, as does the Irrepressible Rose, which gets infected with some rose blight every year but perseveres in irrepressibility nonetheless. I can't help but admire the pure life force of these plants.

Turning around, I checked to see if the perennial sweet peas like my supports.

I think that's a yes.

 

Then comes a look over and along the terrace wall where Bird's Foot Trefoil has taken over what in spring is the primrose bank. I'm waiting until it has finished flowering before tidying up there.

Around the corner of the bank from the Bird's Foot Trefoil the Devil's bit Scabious is getting ready to flower

Flower bud of Devil's Bit Scabious

Devil's Bit Scabious leaves

Then I wandered along the boggy bottom lawn to the south-east slope to check on the Whorled Caraway. There is quite a meadow of it in with the buttercups.

I have used some arrows and bits of colourful stuff to mark where some of the plants are. This is to avoid accidental mowing with an indiscriminately swung scythe blade on the part of a plant-unaware garden helper ;-)  He's used to it; the orchids all get flags too. Some people might view it as the main disadvantage of a 'natural' garden, not having what you want to keep in obvious beds, but my view is that that's just the way the Boggy Brae works and I have to work with it.

Then it was time to go in, to wash and dress and eat breakfast, and to recover. An hour or two in the garden needs a recovery time of twice that a few hours later when the ME nausea sets in and a double whammy of painkillers to deal with the arthritic stiffness that follows toute de suite. Hey ho.