The new (not quite finished) pergola in the farmhouse back garden. |
The mimosa, which leads a precarious life, has grown like topsy over the past few months. It has little tiny flower buds on it in amongst the feathery leaves which have all been swathed in a lightweight tarpaulin and tied up with string in the hope that this gives enough protection against the forthcoming frosts. The forecast is for -11 later in the week!
To explain about the mimosa's precarious life - the previous owner was given some seeds by her daughter who lived in Morocco. She planted the seeds on the front wall of the gite, which faces south - makes good sense initially. I don't know how many seeds there were but the one that germinated and grew into a tree was right up against the wall and in front of a window, so when we were renovating the gite it had to be moved. By chance we were having the swimming pool excavated so a digger was available and with one big scoop a new hole was dug, and with another the whole rootball was dug out. Job done! Only thing is that the tree is now in a more exposed place and if we have a cold winter, which is often the case, it suffers terribly. To the point that a couple of years ago it was so badly frost damaged that we cut it down to the ground completely thinking that it was dead. But then, a good few months later it started sprouting out of the ground so we decided to give it another chance. By last winter it was the size of a shrub so we covered it in fleece for the winter, which was successful. This winter it is at least 4m high and 3m diameter so the piece of fleece is far too small and the tarpaulin seemed the best thing. We will see what happens and keep our fingers crossed. I did manage to get some seeds to germinate about 4 years ago now and have one small tree left in my greenhouse just in case.
This isn't the only example of plants regrowing here - when a gingko had its main stem chewed off by a deer I thought the whole thing would die, but that too sent up a new stem. So now, if something looks dead, we leave it in the ground for a year or so to make entirely sure!
The snow today had really settled on the branches of trees and shrubs so we had to go round and give them a shake to get it off. Some young sliver birch trees were bent over to the ground but soon sprang back. Then we had to rescue the fruit cage.
A heavy load on the fruit cage netting. |
Pergola in progress. |