Round the garden in 80 days #48

I love being on holiday when it’s a normal workday. In this case, it meant that today I could peruse the wares at IKEA without having to navigate through throngs of people.

My New Year’s resolution is to finally make some real headway in the house. So, first things first, we needed a bookcase for all the books which currently live on the livingroom floor.

Once this had duly been transported home, I decided to take advantage of the dry weather to finish off pruning the Orléans Reinette.

Before – sunny but cold.

After – starting to get dark and colder.

The tree doesn’t look terribly different in the above photos but there are only three branches which remain untouched. They were too high to prune without stepladders but today was not the day for getting them out. The ground is just too soft.

Half the branches were cut up and placed in the pots vacated by the rhubarb. From experience, I’ve learned that they won’t rot but they should help with drainage.

The rest of them were added to the bug house. Again, they won’t rot, at least not in the foreseeable future, but I do hope they are attractive to the critters which may be inclined to inhabit the ‘house’.