After a pretty miserable, cold, wet, foggy, sometimes snowy start to the year things have really picked up in the past week or so.
We have seen much more sunshine and the garden is enjoying it immensely.
We spent a couple of weekends pruning the fruit trees but those which were dealt with before Winter have certainly appreciated the attention.
The plum tree already has a mass of blossom at the end of February.
Of the two peach trees which were in a very sorry state last year, we may have managed to nurtured one back to life, it too has some blossom and, whilst not a magnificent display of pink, it seems much happier than what we saw last year. Fingers crossed for the future. The second tree does not seem to have recovered so well, but it is early days yet.
We did very little with the trees last year because, quite frankly, we were not sure what to do. The exceptions being the avocado and the persimmon trees which both had a severe pruning and both subsequently produced a lot of fruit.
Spurred on by this success we have taken a lot more off these trees so they are no longer a dominating presence in the garden.
This year the orange trees and the lemon tree have also had a serious haircut bringing them more into line with what we see in other gardens around the area.
Janet's baby fig tree has survived the Winter and has sprouted a little leaf. This was just a stick in the ground for months but now it really is alive. Let's hope we live long enough to enjoy some home grown figs.
