Catch the pigeon

After months of frantic digging and colourful language, nearly all of the agapanthus are gone. Their monstrous roots have filled two garden bins a week since midwinter, wheeled gingerly down the path and then humped up the kerb.

Their final domain at the front of the garden was mostly on top of a giant weed mat, which made extracting the last few slightly easier. It also meant the soil underneath the mat hadn’t seen the sunlight or a falling leaf for many years, and it’s the most leaden and slippery of all the clay soil we have.

Bravely taking on these difficult conditions is a single pigeonwood (Hedycarya arborea), a lure to attract more cooing kererū to our garden. The oval orange berries are a pigeon delicacy. We’ve also planted a quartet of Muehlenbeckia astonii/shrubby tororaro, a tangly shrub with heart-shaped leaves, hoping optimistically that they will romance each other and combine into a hedge.