Last year, before I had any real understanding of gardening (i.e., before I got three books on it for my birthday), I approached the garden with a "slash and burn" policy. Had napalm been available, I probably would have used that, but in its absence, I went a bit wobbly-bonkers with the secateurs. Anything green in the wrong place fell prey to my shears -- including the clematis on the Scots pine. The previous owners of our house had clearly tried to train it up the trunk, tying it with bits of (tatty) raffia. To me, it just looked like messy, unsightly growth -- and to my minimalist mind, that meant it had to go. Hack, hack, hack. It wasn't until my mother pointed out that I was removing most of a rather nice plant that I stopped. As a result, last year's crop of flowers was somewhat disappointing.
However, as with the hydrangea and forsythia out front, it turns out I've done no real long-term damage. This year, we have a beautiful waterfall of flowers from the clematis -- and now that the strong winds of the past 10 days have died down, I've been able to capture them on film. Once these flowers have died down, we'll attempt to tie the plant back onto the tree, but for now, I'm rather pleased.
Next on my hit list: the fuschia!
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