Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

A sad job

Sadly, many of our plans for the garden changed in one fell swoop last Friday. A freak storm centred over the North Sea brought nearly 24 hours of 70+ mph winds and another day of 50+ mph winds. Those gales brought down two of the bigger trees on the property, and badly damaged several others. We're hoping that the damaged ones survive, but we have another big storm brewing for this coming weekend, and that might be enough to bring them down as well. It's been a bit soul-destroying, to be honest. We've gone from having a nice mix of sun and shade, with some sizeable mature trees to having a very open garden with almost no shade at all. Yes, we'll plant some new trees next year, but we're not likely to live long enough to see them match the size of those that fell.

Mike's put in some hard graft over the past few days. We'll supply several friends with many yards of logs for their fireplaces and wood stoves, and we'll burn some of the branches in our fire pit. And some will undoubtedly make nice homes for overwintering hedgehogs.

Our 'John Downie' crab apple is looking pretty sad at the moment. The trunk has gone from being straight and true to leaning decidedly to the south-east, with previously unseen roots now visible near the base. Blasted, dead leaves hang from its branches — where they haven't been stripped off completely — and the entire crop of apples has been sprayed across the lawn. The Eurasian Blackbirds and Song Thrushes spent today bouncing around in the grass gobbling up what they could find.

The winds blasted one side of the cherry, stripping the leaves (and some of the branches), and putting the whole canopy "on the huh", as they say here in Norfolk to indicate something off-kilter. Fortunately, the buds look like they've survived, so hopefully it will still give us a great flower show next spring.

Some of the other plants suffered too. Our three Echium plants are looking decidedly worse for wear. Can you tell which direction the wind came from?

Regular change is a constant in gardening, and we'll certainly see some changes over the next months and years as a result of this storm. At least it will be easier to figure out where to put the new pond, now that we no longer have to worry about it filling up with fallen leaves.