Keep Kalmia and Carry On

Every year I forget what this flower is called and spend ages trying to find it online!  It is, as you all knew, Kalmia latifolia or Mountain Laurel and it is so pretty in every stage.  Before they unfurl, the little flowers look like Iced Gems (remember them?)

A frustrating afternoon in the garden and I blame Monty Don!  Last week he suggested putting a netting cage over fruit trees and made it look so easy.  So to protect our cherry tree we bought the netting and some pegs to hold it down and we already had the canes and small pots to put on top of them.  

Easy peasy, we thought.  Except we hadn't reckoned on where the cherry tree is located!  Surrounded on three sides by huge conifers and on the other by a path, it proved impossible to get the canes to stay in the rock hard ground and support the netting.  TJ tried using a frame he had spare, but it was too heavy for the canes to support and we had no other suitable wood.  

Mission failed!!  It would have been cheaper to let the birds have our cherries and buy some in the local farm shop!  The joys of gardening!!