Sorting out the little people and keeping out the deer

A huge amount has happened in the garden over the last few weeks so much so in fact that it has been difficult to keep up with the blog.

First of all we thought we should sort out the little people so we gave the children’s play area a good tidy up from the winter and refurbished some of the timber safety rails etc. We then went on to build a new sand pit I think that this has gone down quite well as the James children couldn’t wait for us to finish it.

All good things start from a good base, from the ground up as it were, so another little project we have been working on has been improving the facilities down at the nursery. Ever since I started at Torosay, just over a year ago now, I have been struggling for space to put new plants whilst I bulk them up or wait to get planting areas prepared. It had got so bad that I was filling up the pathways, any way we brought in quite a few tons of aggregate and virtually doubled our standing down area.

Quite a bit of planting has taken place near the entrance; we have put in a screen of yew's to hide the staff car parking dustbins and oil tank. At four feet plus tall and grown as field root balled they were damned heavy but in the difficult conditions they needed to be fairly instant. Why Yews? Unfortunately the entrance area is not deer fenced so we have to use something that they do not like to eat.

Close by we have done some more screening with another plant that the deer seem to find unpalatable - Rhododendron. We had some large specimens that were in a position that spoilt a vista in another part of the garden so we lifted them out with the aid of our digger and they were pruned heavily to make up for the root disturbance, even so they still stand over 2.5 metres tall and I am praying that they take.