One of those big birthdays has snuck up on me. 'What do you want?'

For my fiftieth we bought cordon apple trees and planted them at our allotment: they flourished and I'm pleased to see that other allotment holders have subsequently seen the value of cordons for delivering lots of delicious fruit in a small area. Pleased too that we  moved the cordons successfully last year to form a boundary between the orchard and the vegetable garden at Cordwood.

This time I'm thinking of plants again: they can act as a long-lasting reminder of special occasions and give pleasure for many years.

the 'permaculture' border before development

In 2012 we cleared the thick bramble scrub intertwined with nettles that had established themselves beneath our 28 metre avenue of silver birch (betula pendula) trees. Here's my plan....

Beneath the trees to establish a 'permaculture' or 'forest garden' border. Basically this is one that provides food.

So, as a first step we've got lots of hedging roses. Their thorny branches provide excellent roughage when eaten .... no no. Being silly. Their hips have traditionally been collected for their high vitamin C and preserved in things like rose hip syrup. The lovely Linda has been hankering after making rose hip syrup ... soon she'll have her chance. She and Trev have also come up with extra planting ideas..

This is my fave part...

busy birdfeeders

Hung up a range of bird feeders in the trees on Birch avenue - with absolutely no success whatsoever...

That is, until last week when the birds suddenly seemed to  show interest.

And then we had coal, great and blue tits; 6 long tailed tits were on the fat balls at once; a robin has joined the party and two cock pheasants peck around beneath the feeders picking up the seed cast down by the aristocratic tits above. Two tree creepers were attracted by the activity and ascended neighbouring birches in perfect symmetry, like an avian synchronised swimming team. A pair of goldcrests also became very excited. Then this week, two nuthatches came and joined us. Look closely and you can see one of them in action....

Not much in the finch department yet, so plan to make a squirrel proof bird table which, along with my hefty bag of Aldi bird seed will attract chaffinches, greenfinches and in a perfect world, tree and house sparrows...

hedging roses

One of the special challenges in creating six acres of beautiful, natural gardens at Cordwood is the lack of a landscaping budget.
So, we are busy raising plants from seed and dividing the many gifts of plants we're given to increase their number.
But we do buy plants and have special jewels we've bought as we've travelled the country visiting gardens and nurseries.
And then there are surprises...
The German supermarket chain Aldi has had bundles of hedging plants for sale this week - 10 plants for £3.99 - and I love Aldi bargains.
First I delved in and bought beech (fagus sylvatica) hedging - four bundles for less than £16.00.
Then I spotted individual rosa rugosa (the Ramanus Rose) and some at 99p.
And by then I was caught and stuffed dog rose (rosa canina), burnet rose (rosa pimpinellifolia), rosa glauca rubrifolia and rosa virginiana into my trolley: I'd only gone in for milk!! Each of the roses is blessed with the simple flowers that insects love.

The beech hedge may form a screen through which we will walk into the Cedar Walk. The roses, augmented with holly, may screen the vegetable garden beneath the avenue of birch.

 All have been bought too soon and so have been 'healed in', in a corner of the orchard until we are ready to put them into their permanent position.

Here, our team of gardening assistants check the quality of our work....

extending the cedar walk

The two seventy feet tall Atlas Blue cedar trees that dominate our eastern boundary with our neighbours have given the name to the garden beneath them: the Cedar Walk.

The walk is a meandering path through what is a tree and shrub nursery of small plants we hope to bring on in future years for use in other parts of the garden.

Over the weekend, Judith and Roger brought a new burst of energy and first a car full of plants bought on a visit to Cae Hir gardens, then a trailer full of plants from their own garden.

The new arrivals have been planted in a bed that is at the end of the avenue of birches close to the Cedar Walk. And then, with blood glycogen still high, they cleared and extended the entrance to the Cedar Walk and mowed encroaching weeds.

The old tarmac service road that was part of the old mushroom farm separates the Cedar Walk and the avenue of birches but this will be cleared by our contractors.

relief of mattocking

Tuesdays are becoming mens days at Cordwood. A chance for banter, a laugh, a good sit around a smokey camp fire drinking coffee .... and a lot of productive work.

Today Trev and Jim joined me and we worked  with mattock and fork through the wretched ground that was riddled with a network of bramble and nettle roots.

At some time in the past, someone had crudely chainsawed down a group of silver birch and left their stumps ripped and uneven. We've left the stumps because they are parasitised by attractive polypores - bracket fungus - and have stacked the sawn and decaying logs for invertebrates. The invertebrates in their turn feed a range of creatures higher up the food chain and we spotted wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus) and common shrew (Sorex araneus).

The area beneath the tall birches had been colonised by by bramble and nettles but the growth was limited due to the trees taking the light, moisture and nutrients from the shorter plants at ground level. In the area where the sawn stumps were found, the undergrowth was higher than two metres  (six feet) due to the plants unfettered access to light, moisture and nutrients. And didn't we know it!!

But, as the photos show,  we are making good progress in clearing this area. Trev has a big clump of cyclamen hederifolium that will be planted beneath some of the birches.

So, thanks lads for todays work. Looking forward to the next time.