Return to Mrs U-turn

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Daily life often takes me past Mrs U-turn's house. The "For Sale" board has been put up and I still get a lump in my throat when driving past.

I have now been approached by one of the executors of her will, so l will continue to look after the garden until a buyer has been found.

This week I returned to start on some tidying and cutting back. For a few minutes I could not concentrate. I fidgeted around, picked up secateurs, put them down again and got the hedgetrimmer out (it helps with the clump of pampas grass), then decided that maybe the climbing roses and clematis should be dealt with first....

Seriously, this is unusual for me. Maybe, because I had been absent from the garden for two months and maybe because it all felt so different without Renee being there.

I did eventually get into the swing of it: the two obelisks at the front are covered in a climbing rose and clematis each and they needed cutting back. The round bed at the front had been left to decline gracefully over the winter. Its mixture of grasses and herbaceous perennials meant that most of the work takes place in later winter and early Spring.

I decided to cut everything back at once rather than staggering the job. All the perennials are hardy and they all showed signs of new growth at the base, so an hour was spent on cutting back.

The six foot cephalarias which looked so impressing in Summer are now bare brown stalks. Cut back to the base, the new foliage is clearly visible.

The grasses (all Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster') were actually still attractive; maybe I am biased but I am very fond of the bleached stalks.

Left too long though, and the new growth would be removed by cutting back, so no time was lost. And then I discovered the ladybirds! There were dozens of them, hiding in the stubble. My state of mind improved and I thought how happy Renee would have been by their discovery.

The achilleas were a particularly sorry sight: dead stalks carried the remains of the flower disks. The hairy foliage from last year was a ghostly grey but new growth a soft greyish green.

Cut back now, a lot of the fresh foliage is visible.

Last but not least, it was the turn of the salvias .

I don't normally cut these back in February but the new growth was already quite advanced as yiu can see.

The pampas grass has to come next but that's another day.