I was amused to read about the Powerco School of Gardening in the paper recently. The article was about trees reaching in to power lines and the ongoing problem of property owners planting unsuitable trees. I would not dispute for one minute that this is an issue. Most people have a great deal of difficulty envisaging the eventual size of plants and it is hard to see that a little stick around 100 to 150cm tall will ever pose a threat to overhead wires.

I well recall selling a yellow magnolia to a gardener when they were still very new on the market. I warned him at the time that most of the yellow magnolias achieve a similar stature to a timber tree when mature and that they grow very quickly. When I visited his garden soon after, there was this bare rod (it was winter) planted directly below his overhead lines. I think he subsequently moved it, on my recommendation. If not, Powerco are probably chasing him now.
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Cooler weather for a few days seemed to herald a change in the season. As one who loves summer, I hope it was only a temporary aberration but it must have been the first hint of autumn which made me think of food.

The damson plum tree is laden and I can’t even give the fruit away. In the past I have satisfied my harvest festival urge (which passes very quickly) by indulging in damson gin but I decided last time that I preferred the gin without the year steeping the damsons. Not being pudding eaters, we don’t go in for fruit crumbles and plum duffs so the damsons may just go to waste. I notice that Mark had a similar response to wastefulness and there is a supermarket bag full of them sitting on the shed floor. He tells me he plans to use them for wine but I predict they will sit there until they start to rot and then they will go to the compost heap.
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By ABBIE JURY

I had not, I admit, seen the lawn as a political statement until last week. True, we had been discussing the state of our summer lawns prior to that. A guest had looked at them and commented on how splendid those belonging to a mutual gardening friend were looking. I assumed, by implication, that he was suggesting ours didn’t look splendid at all. Tordon Gold, he told us, was reputed to be the answer.

Mark has commented several times that he has been reviewing his approach to the lawns. While he has been reviewing, I have been crawling around cutting out some of the worst of the weeds. As I never spray anything, I don’t feel able to criticise him for not spraying.
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By ABBIE JURY

I don’t often read the junk mail which clutters up the mailbox but my eye was caught this week by an item on an electronic goods flier. Niles Rock Speakers, it proclaimed. Niles, I assume is the brand. These are outdoor speakers made to look like rocks, with a granite finish.

I am not a fan of piped music in the garden. I don’t want to walk around a garden, my own or anybody else’s, to the strains of music whether it be “The Flight of the Bumblebee”, pan pipes, Hawaiian muzak or anything else. So it has always been a bit of a mystery to me as to why others feel that it enhances one’s enjoyment of a garden. And when it comes to outdoor entertaining, we are more of the ‘wind up the stereo and put the speakers on the window sill’ school of making-do.
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By ABBIE JURY

I was so shocked I had to ring Mark, who was out at the time, and echo a line I had heard him use before. “The winter firewood has arrived,” I told him.

I had been peaceably pottering in my rose garden early last week when I heard a sudden creaking and crashing noise followed by a very loud whoomp. I knew immediately it was a tree falling and hoped in vain that it might be in the neighbour’s. But no, it was one of our old man pines which form the backbone to our avenue gardens.
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