Hedge harvest

Every morning in Pogles Wood the hedgepig wakes the Pogles by ringing the door bell.  I am lucky enough to have hedgepigs in my garden and there is a great harvest for them on the hedges this year (yes I know they don't eat berries but indulge me).
Its been a good year for the hawthorns.  My main boundary is made up of a variety of trees including lots of hawthorns.  They are one of my favourite trees, so useful.  At my old house I planted a hawthorn hedge in the back yard to prevent people jumping over the side wall.  The spines make very effective natural barbed wire!
I have lots of these Sloes too.  They look great mixing with the Hawthorns.
There is a huge amount of ivy around the garden.  Now I am not a huge fan of ivy.  I know it is good for wildlife but I think it dark and quite dismal.  It is also far too much in abundance for me to actually even contemplate getting rid of it so I praise its wild-life qualities and try and think well of it.
One of the greatest things about my hedge though are the wild roses that wind their way through it.  This year was a really good year for them so the resulting hips are gorgeous.
They positively shine like a red haze.
Last year I made rose-hip jelly for the first time.  I admit it was quite a fiddly job prepping all the rose hips as they weight so little you need to collect a lot.  The jelly is wonderful, but I am having a year off from it this year.

To finish and also to state what is hopefully fairly obvious, this is not called the Blackberry Garden on a whim.  I have blackberries, lots of them.  In terms of natural barbed wire there is no getting through this stuff it is fearsome!  It also self-seeds everywhere and can grow to monstrous proportions.  I don't even like eating them unless in a pie with apples.  They are however a key part of the character of the garden and so have to take pride of place.

and if you have no idea what I am talking about when I talk of Pogles - see here 

Comments

  1. I know the brambles are fearsome, I keep getting caught on the horns when I go collecting the fruit. Point of interest: if you lived up here your blog would to be called the Bramble Garden!

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  2. Brambles is a good name for them, they certainly are very thorny, I get scratched to bits!

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  3. I have a huge amount of ivy around the garden and like you there is too much to manage effectively. When I first came I wondered what the smell was and didn't like it too much but after 10 years it has grown on me.

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