Courtyard Schemings 2

A crowbar is not your obvious gardening tool but it became a recent essential ally.  Removing ivy from my garage wall had turned into a nightmarish wrestling match of huge proportions.

One week, one ton builders bag full of debris, several broken tools, every muscle aching and six blisters later the job was done.  Blisters, I ask you!  Any lingering guilt I felt about removing this thicket of wildlife habitat, this nectar bar to our endangered bees vanished in the battle to remove the beast. ( Before you send letters don't please, there is plenty more elsewhere...)

Respect though at its colonising power, especially when I had to clamber and crawl into the tiny loft cavity to remove the final adventitious roots from the internal rafters. Why you may be asking? Why so aggressive a gardening task? Well, to make room for a bloody wall fountain, that's why...( see Courtyard Schemings 1)

If that takes as long and proves as complicated my courtyard refurbishment project is going to be a testing time.  I've still got the roots to get out and to lever up three paving slabs to create a deeper planting hole for my new fragrant climbing rose.

Pick axe next up?  Now where is it.......?

Only two weeks until the Maroc trip. La Majorelle gardens donated by Yves Saint Laurent to the people of Marrakech is first on my list .