Focus!

'Perhaps we should do the photoshoot in the garden!'

It's amazing how galvanising that sentence can be when the garden in question is yours and you haven't been in it in any useful way since about November!

We have used the garden before for this particular client but usually in March or April so it's a spring garden - now it's most definitely a winter garden and we will have to pick and choose out spot very carefully.

This is the area we need to use (things will be hanging from the hooks), so the shrubs all needed light pruning and tidying and a lot of weeping (now there's a telling slip of the tongue) sorry - sweeping.

I also spent a very unpleasant half hour clearing cat poo from my terrace. I had not noticed the local cats had colonised it, I had assumed that the uncomfortable gravel would make it undesirable - how wrong was I! The fallen leaves from the Cotoneaster against the garage and the dry dead grasses have obviously rendered it ideal! I always keep a look out when I've been digging, but elsewhere we have been relatively problem free. Now I have to find something to deter them - any recommendations gratefully received (other than slow death - theirs not mine), and now I cannot get the smell out of my nostrils - yuk!

The biggest pruning  job was actually something that isn't going to be in shot, but something that is where my photographer needs to stand.

Five years ago I planted a Jasmine 'clotted cream' in a hole in the paving against the house. It wasn't possible to dig a generous hole, and the ground under the paving is very unimpressive so I have cosseted it and avoided pruning as much as possible to get it to settle and grow away. It really has and had become a 10ft high sprawling heap in which it was quite possible to lose a photographer! 

But not any more *adopts holier than though tone*!

Now I will start to train it in earnest, I would like it to go over the window and along the wall so that the dining area (I know it doesn't look very inviting now but in better weather it is honestly quite a haven), is surrounded by scent. It is very sheltered and often retains its leaves in our mid cornish climate, and it grows and flowers far better than it's hardier white relative just around the corner. Perhaps I should cosset that one more - it gets minimal attention, quite regular hacking and regular interactions with a basketball!!

So now I feel much better - positively smug in fact.

I've done so well I'm sitting in front of the fire with all my garden catalogues and a cup of tea - the best bit of winter gardening.