THANK YOU.

Great story, wonder how much of this happens at the reunion each year as we share our stories.

My first new year project was removing 710 kilos of rubbish (big lumps of concrete, half-rotted chipboard etc) from my back garden. Thanks goodness for kind friends with utes and sledgehammers. I'm eating peas and baby lettuce I've grown from seed so I'm happy (only had my garden 3 months). I'm about 2 days away from eating my first courgette. Despite the complete lack of bees, pollination has been happening and I've got small green tomatoes that will hopefully ripen. A big fat strawberry is just starting to turn red. Roll on some sunny days. I can't plant too much until I fix the crumbling retaining wall between me and the neighbour so that's my big plan for the year. That and turning rubbish, weedy grasses and ankle-twistingly uneven heaps of dirt into a back garden. I've never started with a virtual blank slate before. It's quite exciting. Happy New Year!

Yes, a few more that I couldn't post earlier today below. Yep, 'Bird Park' seems to be difficult to graft, I would say those account for most of my losses. I did many 'Bird Park' grafts and only had 1 success. However, I chopped the understock off before reading that Spruce need the understock, so I will likely lose it... I just don't trust myself to care for fresh grafts in pots... I would much rather allow mother nature to care for them. I'm not particularly organized, and would likely forget to water or fertilize them. That area is pretty shaded if the trees will ever leaf out, but in the meantime I have a 60% shade cloth canopy overhead. Interestingly, the one surviving graft of Picea x mariorika 'Glauca' has no buds! I didn't notice when I grafted the piece that the buds were missing. It seems healthy though. I'm keeping the rootstock on that one and hoping it will be able to generate new buds next year... I've seen it happen before! Picea x mariorika 'Glauca' Picea abies 'Reflexa' Picea pungens 'Glauca Globosa' Picea abies 'Green Globe' (Triple Graft) - Bad picture, raining today original broom of 'Green Globe' Updated Yellow strobus, already turned to green for the spring/summer: Original Photo of 'Bird Park' broom: