Taming the yard after year of neglect is thirsty work

IT was a big job, not lightly undertaken. The back yard – it isn’t really a garden, only bushes and trees round a paved area – has been neglected for nearly a year.

The allotment took first place when I began to feel strong enough to mess around with tools.

And if you leave it as long as that, Nature has ways of persuading you to put off the work. Just another week, please.

But I can’t let the trees block out the view of the crag and its lovely stone follies – Lund’s Tower and Wainman’s Pinnacle – any longer.

So, it’s out with the stepladder, the loppers and the shears. Plus the ancient secateurs – chipped, blunted and frankly not up to the job. A bit like their owner.

First, clear a path through the convolvulus, the pretty pink bush, the creeping blackberry, the ivy and the holly. How did they get so rampant?

Then up the ladder with the short bow-saw to hack back the tree with the white flowers (you can see I’m no botanist). The false spring has encouraged it to bloom again.

On to the runaway number with long stems, bright yellow flowers and ferocious prickly leaves – probably a mahonia winter sun. Next comes the Japanese maple. A very attractive tree with dark purple flowers. Most decorative, lovely in the autumn.

I’ve had a go at this before. It comes back fighting.

I did the buddleia weeks ago, when the flowers died. Only the magnolia left, which came in a tub from Cowling and now rears 12 feet in the air.

Soddit. That’s enough hacking for this old hack. Time for a pint of Craven bitter. Got to look after the head gardener.