Grasping the Nettle

Having moved the three (now sad looking, but hopefully only temporarily so) pillar fruit trees down to  the fruit cage yesterday…..

…. and being prevented from relocating further shrubs into the new shrub border not only by the Golfer’s presence, digging out an ancient fence post and cutting the tree stumps closer to the ground, but also by our newish neighbour serendipitously starting to replace her fence panels to give a nice solid back to my new shrub border (or perhaps it was just to stop her dog escaping)…..

…..I allowed myself instead to make a nominal start on the end of the woodland edge border that was the subject of my most recent ‘good idea’. The snowdrops are perhaps better moved once they are at least in leaf, the two hellebores and a persicaria (‘Superbum’?) can wait till we have had some rain as they are things I don’t want to lose, but I managed to remove some of the native thalictrum (meadow rue), polygonum and ivy, their roots intertwined and densely matted together. A large nettle, however, inadvertently grasped, can wait until I am wearing a pair of gloves – ouch!