This is almost a live blog as I have come in for a breather. I started early as it is so hot,although even at eight thirty it was too warm. I have been digging out the stump of the huge tree at the bottom of the garden which fell down during the winter,luckily into our garden. It had been taken over by ivy to such and extent that not only had it killed the tree but the weight had dragged it down. I have been pecking away at it for months but Linda stopped me doing too much in case there were any hibernating hedgehogs in it. We know we have them as we have seen the droppings.I had to chop it into pieces with a pickaxe as the saw got stuck too easily. I was going to borrow a chainsaw but that would have been equally dangerous and I was not sure if there was not heavy duty wire grown into it which would have been very nasty to deal with, it had been part of the boundary and I had already had to cut down old metal posts and wire that they used in the sixties.I remember cutting an old tree down when we lived in the Cotswolds and it had a fence wire growing right through it - the chainsaw spat back at me and twisted my wrist and I was lucky that that was all it did! Ever since then I have followed safety rules to the letter.The gap left by the tree is where the new arbour is going.

At Milborne Port I finally got all the dahlias out and this week will concentrate on getting the pots sorted. At Wincanton I am having a full scale war with the rabbits which ate all the tops off my sunflowers. I ordered some more netting to do a new strawberry cage which I will finish this week.