May 2018

May is my favourite month of the year. Buds have burst into lush new foliage everywhere you look and that long horrible wet winter is already a distant memory.  Plants have started to flower, the bees are buzzing, birds are nesting and everything feels fresh and new.

Sadly the four willow trees  that were diseased at the end of last summer have not sprung into life like every thing else despite my efforts to save them so these will be cut down and replaced next winter.

There is also a Hornbeam tree on Loftus avenue that is very late coming into leaf so this one may also be on it’s way out.

On a more cheerier note the Ceanothus on Loftus Avenue and Loftus Walk have well established them selves now and are looking particularly gorgeous smothered in electric blue flowers and the wild flower meadow in our new park is just a breath-taking sea of pink . The plants on top of the new wall are also looking lovely.

The biggest problem we have at the minute is keeping it all alive. Watering is still a major task, we have leapt from a very wet spring to a very dry early summer. Established trees and shrubs are fine but the new planting still needs a lot of TLC to keep it going so the hose pipes will be out again today.