Weekend gardener: start pruning
Fruit
Summer-pruning fruit trees is recommended in smaller sections as it reduces tree size and vigour. (Removing branches with leaves means fewer leaves to make energy through photosynthesis. Thus new growth is limited and less energy is available to be stored in the roots, which in turn reduces the available energy for growth next growing season.) Summerpruning also cuts the risk of bacterial and fungal infections.
For the tree’s first and second years after planting, spring growth should be cut back by half, and in late summer, any subsequent growth should also be cut back by half. After the third year, cut any branches back to the maximum size you want the tree to be and don’t let any grow beyond this. Too vigorous shoots may be removed altogether.
Summer pruning is (obviously) best done after fruiting and the principles are generally the same as winter pruning – removing dead, diseased or crossing-over branches. Usually, stonefruit are pruned to a vase shape and pipfruit to a central leader.
Bulbs
Many late-winter and springflowering bulbs will be dormant now and can be lifted and stored for replanting in autumn, either if they are becoming too crowded or you want them somewhere else. As a general rule, loose dirt should be shaken off bulbs and leaves cut off before storing.
Freesia corms can be lifted, dried, then stored in a warm airy place out of direct sunlight.
After lifting, Dutch irises should be dried as above, then their papery skin removed, offsets separated from larger bulbs and all stored in a cool airy place.
Gladiolus are best lifted six to eight weeks after flowering and stored in a warm airy spot for three weeks to cure them, then stored in a cool place until replanting in spring.
Daffodils are ideally shifted in December, but can be done now with haste.
Peonies and bearded irises may be lifted and split now – and until May – and replanted immediately.
Edibles
Weed asparagus beds but leave the plants to grow as this will help produce a good crop next spring.
Plant out broccoli, celery and leeks.
Ornamentals
Deadhead bedding plants, perennials, roses and other shrubs flowering now to prolong this period and keep the plant looking fresh. This will also direct the plant’s energy into growing rather than producing seeds.
Time
She ends up pregnant and – with Catholic warnings of going to hell for sinning against the Church – unable to have an abortion.
Once again, Nora finds a way to get her out of trouble, this time by marrying Charlie (even though she doesn’t love him) and pretending Teresa’s son Patrick is their own. It’s a decision that will haunt them both for the rest of their lives and pull them irretrievably apart.
Five decades on, Nora has four adult children while Teresa has chosen the cloistered life of a nearby nunnery.
Now badly behaved and boozy, Patrick is Nora’s favourite.
It is his death in a drink-drive car crash at the age of 50 that has the potential to mend the fractured relationship and bring the sisters back together. But with Nora still angry with her sister and unable to tell anyone the truth about Patrick, or any of the other secrets she has accumulated, this seems unlikely.
Told from the point of view of the two sisters, as well as Nora’s adult children, the characters are credible and, with the exception of Nora, relatable.
It’s hard to engage with a protagonist who allows herself few if any feelings. Buttoned-up, obsessively tidy, insisting on catering for all the many big family events by herself, Nora puts up a barrier to all her family, incapable of feeling love for anyone except Patrick, incapable of showing affection, or speaking freely. But it is Nora who anchors the novel, who gets under your skin, even if you want to shake her into confession.
Yet life, and fiction, is never that simple.
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