Climbing up to the fort

Monday 14th Jan
Weather: Cold. Around 3°C again. Unexpected snow in the morning. Then rain in the afternoon.

Rhododendrons are one of the plants that can be found at the foot of the fort, happily displaying their nice shaped evergreen leaves 

We worked on the area which I like to personally refer to as 'the fort'. As there is a mound at the top surrounded by a small wooden fence, which is our water reservoir, and there is a steep bank on one side of it. On this side next to the driveway & near the horse pond it looks like a non-sort of space, but Fergus loves this area because he feels like it is the random kind of space a personal garden would have. As if we were about to take siege we climbed up the hill to cut back all the ferns, saving the fronds for insulating plants and picked up all the twigs, fallen branches etc for a bonfire at Pen Stump. Then we cut down all the Sambucus around that area trying to be careful not to crush the drifts of snowdrops coming up.

Spongy mossy growth underneath the leaves