A Matter Of Taste

We went back down to the lake first thing yesterday morning  to plant three Metasequoia glyptostroboides, that's the deciduous redwood to you and me. They should grow ten metres high in ten years and make a bold statement both with the colour of their bark and the foliage which turns butter yellow before leaf drop in the autumn. Whilst there we noticed the woodland floor was littered with blue herons egg shells which means that the babies have hatched way up high in their swaying nests of sticks, how they don't get blown out of the tree tops I will never know. Speaking of bold statements I have a small gripe with my neighbours, nice enough people all, sociable and usually quiet but they certainly aren't gardeners as I will now prove. One side recently came home with some plastic topiary which looms above our fence and so frightened the dog at first that he wouldn't go out the back door without barking.

However that is knocked into a cocked hat by the other side who have installed a three foot tall waving plastic gnome, I nearly dropped the recycling yesterday morning as it loomed out of the darkness. What's wrong with a nice tree for goodness sake!

"They are much to be pitied who have not been given a taste for nature early in life"
Jane Austin