Winter tidy up

I’ve not been able to spend much time in the garden recently and it was starting to show. Fortunately, a weekend at home and some good weather today meant I could get out and cross a few jobs off the list.

The first thing I tackled were the Vervain (Verbena officinalis) and Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber) plants near the house. These flowered beautifully in the summer but needed cutting back as they were getting a bit out of hand.

I then cut back the Raspberry canes that had fruited this year (I’m doing my pruning a bit late really). The variety we have fruits on old wood so each year I have to remove the canes that have fruited, leaving the ones that grew this year so they can fruit next year.

The next task was to tidy up the pond a bit. I weeded around the margins and removed some of the dead stalks from things like the Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi). I also removed quite a lot of Water Mint (Mentha aquatica) from the pond as it was starting to take over a bit. I’ve got a bit more to remove before spring but hopefully a regular weeding out will stop it swamping the pond.