Drought Damage!!

Despite our experience of a few years now, we have been surprised that some of the woody shrubs we planted and even a 9ft Bay Tree that has been growing for years appear to be suffering for drought so early in the year.


It was even more surprising that in recent weeks there has been lots of rain in Colondannes, but despite this some shrubs have died.

The strange thing is that all of the soft stem and leaf plants have survived and continue to do well, so we are at a loss to understand what is happening and can only hope the woody shrubs eventually recover.


One benefit of the recent weather it that there are no signs of the Moles and so far in 2012, no mounds have appeared.  Perhaps the weather is the cause of this benefit.


Our herb patch is going strong and we have already had a large crop of Rhubarb to  cut and are about to make some tarts and crumble.  The strawberry plants are again doing well and look as though they will produce a crop even better than last year.  They are benefiting from  the wood mulch, which of course is helping to keep the weeds at bay, but some purging is obviously necessary.


Over the winter we installed 2 large and connected water butts to catch the rain from the wood store/shed and they are both full, so we will be able to water some plants when we are out there and need to water in some new plants.