There is a large holly tree in the garden.  When we arrived at Holmcroft it was almost down to the ground and made mowing the lawn a very prickly business.  The under gardener clipped it till it was about five feet from the ground but it continued to hamper the growth of the beach hedge we put in.  In fact the shade it cast caused some parts of the hedge not to attain its full richness of the copper co lour it should be.  Well I just thought that I would tidy it up a bit more on Thursday when help arrived in the shape of the under gardener and a chain saw and now it is a fraction of the tree it was.  Two hours later light was flooding in.  The only problem was the mountains of holly that needed to be processed and that took for ever.  Still, done now, thank goodness.  

The six lilac trees that are around the garden appear to do very little for about 47 weeks of the year but by the end of May the wait has been well worth it and the garden is filled with the most wonderful fragrance.  Alliums, clematis, peony and wisteria are all doing their thing and look just wonderful.  We really could open this garden at this time of year but the help we need from the villagers and the farmer who's field we "borrow" for parking makes it impossible to open more than just the once.  The under gardener would also find the strain a bit too much!