It is just over 5 weeks since the first snowflakes fell in our garden, and a few of them are still here! However, over the last few days there has been a significant thaw, and as the snow has retreated it has revealed the devastation below.

Devastation caused by a combination of the severe temperatures, the weight of the snow itself and the MOLE. For the last 5 weeks he has been wreaking un-seen havoc with my straight edges.

Before the snow came I had been doing a pretty decent job of keeping my straight edges straight. Not content with messing up my field and destroying the symmetry of  my vegetable beds, he had been working his way up the long (straight) edges of Beds 1 and 2, heading towards the house. Each morning I would go out and try to undo what he had done the night before. Then the snow came.

Having been un-checked for the last 5 weeks under a thick blanket of snow,  he has continued towards the house, along the edge of a flower bed in front of the house, and then to add insult to injury, he’s  come up along the edges of my stepping stones, which should also have straight edges.  I fear  I’m in danger of coming across as rather anal at this point.

The truth is the garden is a mess, and I fear the worst in the Spring. I suspect that this prolonged, below freezing period will have killed a lot of the so-called hardy herbaceous perennials. Don’t even get me started on the stuff in the conservatory.

Happy New Year!!