... and then the rain

We did quite a bit of gardening yesterday, whilst the sun was shining... fortunately, as this morning we woke to persistent rain, and the forecast is for this to continue for three more days - and then it will snow! If the long range forecast is accurate, there won't be any work done in the garden before next weekend. We got the dormant trees pruned; not a long job really, mainly just removing crossing branches. We've also taken out the lowest hanging branches from the mulberry, and trimmed back the top growth on the quince.

The roses have been cut right back too, removing all the foliage. I'm concerned that they get black spot, and the books say this will recur as long as the rose is in the same position. I do hope this isn't right!

One of the problems with maintaining two gardens several hundred miles apart is the issue of water. In France, where we get very hot summer weather, I've installed automatic watering, in four separate systems - but we can't modify the settings while we're away, so each time we leave we have to guess what the weather will do before we return, to leave a suitable setting. Today of course, with the prospect of rain (or snow) every day this week, I've turned the systems off - with the exception of the system which feeds the plant pots under the porch. One of the jobs for this year will be to put valves in this system so that I can leave it connected for the porch but shut it off for the rest of the front garden.