Busy in the garden..

I thought I'd show you guys what I was doing yesterday, whilst at the same time marvelling at Mother Nature and her bloody minded determination to do whatever the hell she likes.

Earlier this year my hubby and I noticed that a tree had started to grow in the flower bed under our bay window.. in a place that we HADN'T planted one.

Now our house is surrounded by 80/100ft Pine and Fir trees, and pine needles and pine cones are the bane of my life... We must collect and dispose of literally thousands every year.

But of course they fall in places where we can't see them and this is what happens if you don't pull them up straight away...   They get really quite BIG...

This was the little thing in June this year

And this was yesterday

 Look how much bigger it is in relation to the solar light... it's grown a good 2 feet in 4 months.

We always planned to move it, there are several places in the back where it would be fine.. and I hate to kill living things if I can avoid it.. but we just didn't get around to it this summer.
This week though we've had a lovely run of sunny warm very un October like weather, so I decided yesterday was the day to shift the ruddy thing.
What I hadn't counted on is that our little friend wasn't alone....  see..

One in the bush

Two in the bush

Maybe I should have tried to find the bird in the hand.. since I already had the two in the bush..

These two were growing up through the 'Snowmound' which is the big shrub you can see behind the tree in photo 1.

And I then found yet another one in a different bed further down the front garden...



Yet another fellow growing from a pine cone.

I can understand how the ones in the bay window bed, might prosper.. at least they get full sun.
But this bed is under a huge apple tree, with a thick bushy undergrowth of shrubs.. how on earth did this one get enough light or water not only survive but to thrive like this !!


Anyway, I wasn't about to  tackle this one yesterday.. but we now have 5 trees to find new homes for.
Because when I started digging I found yet another small tree growing next to the very first one.





So where are they going ?.. well there's a scruffy patch of ground, to the side of the house up against the fence which we have been using as a bit of a dumping ground for dirt and debris for a while.
We have had every intention of turning it into a proper bed for some time. That side of the garden is sadly neglected, mostly because you can't see it from the house.. and because it's next to the spot by the garage door where we keep the rubbish bins.

In the background you can see two of our existing Pine trees, and if the survive at all, this is the size our transplanted specimens should grow to. There's also a rather sickly leylandii that we transplanted from another spot about 3 years ago, which only now is finally recovering from the shock.

I confess I didn't think it would take all that long to dig them up.. oh how wrong I was. !!
In the end I managed to dig up just three including the tiny weeny one that I only found when I started on the others.
It was incredible how long and entrenched the roots of all three were..  especially the big one in picture 1. Some of its' roots stretched 4 or 5 feet underground... took me over an hour to dig up.. But that did at least help to loosen the ground, so the second one only took about half an hour, and the little one came out in about 10 mins.

So this is what the space looks like now.. I'll plant some groundcover I think.

I know I could have just taken a sharp spade to the roots and pulled them out much quicker with brute force, but I'd really like them to survive and with the roots they stand a much better chance.

There's still another sapling tucked away in there hidden in the undergrowth.  

You can just about see one of it's lower branches hidden away here..

It will be even harder to get at because its growing through a lot of established plants.. and it's roots will be tangled up in the roots of those..

yeesh !! 

But I'll try and dig that out at the weekend.

By the time I'd finished, the light was fading, so I stuck the saplings into various sized buckets with some earth and I'll  find them a new home in the back also at the weekend..

if the weather holds that is... and then I'll keep you posted.

Hubby said we could use it as our christmas tree.. but it's too small for that.        This year that is !!!!

 Jo xx