A little find

The brambles and I have made an uneasy peace in our garden. They are supposed to stay in the wilds at the bottom but like to creep along the edges of our long narrow garden when I'm looking the other way, always seeking more land for their wilds while I would like a few softer plants to have their sway. A few months ago, when snipping rather effetely at them in an effort to check them a little before they got their spring vitality and made a push for the house to trap us forever, I found a little holly sapling in their midst. The bramble snakes had filled an old cold frame but somehow a holly seed had found its own little niche in there, a very welcome intruder!

Mama came to visit this past weekend and so I sought her plant wisdom, to first check that it was indeed a holly and secondly that it was in an okay position. Happily there was good news on both fronts.  We have a lime tree that is going to break my heart a little this coming winter when it has to be cut down. It's been fooling me that it was a hazel for all the years I've been here but Mama ruled that one has to go. Looking at the great limes that grow where the park meets the bottoms of our gardens I have to reluctantly agree that this offspring of theirs needs to be dealt with before it is beyond us to do so. Happily what the garden gods take away with one hand they give with the other and my sadness over the future of the lime is balanced by excitement over the little holly.

Mama and I cleared out and moved the old cold frame and gave it a mulch, room to spread its branches and direct access to the plentiful rains. I hope it doesn't miss its old bramble chums too much as I'd like to keep them at bay. I'm resisting the urge to do anything else to it for the moment and finding that a challenge as it's my shiny favourite thing that I want to pet! There's a wonderful section in my friend Meghan's recently published book Unfurl about tending a garden that I think of when I look at my little holly.  Her words remind me that this will flourish best like all of us with the right balance of care, enough and not too much, so today I just enjoyed taking its photo rather than fuss at it anymore.