The following view across the garden is often central to my End of the Month View. See August, September, and October .
End of the Month View – October
Now it looks totally different as the winter tidy up takes place and old herbaceous material is removed and some plants completely removed where we have decided a change is due. 
It looks completely empty of plants but as my last blog said spring is on its way. You will just have to come back later in the year to see it transformed with tulips and alliums.
The rose on the wall has been rehung. Each year they always out grow their space and I find the best solution is often to more or less take them off the wires and try to hang them in a way that their new growth is horizontal. Not always possible! At the same time and dead growth can be pruned out. If you look at the view in October you can see the extent of the new growth that had to be tamed. We have also removed some Cephalaria Gigentea.
Cephalaria Gigentea is quite nice when it is flowering but this happens early in the summer and then the plant looks a mess and it seeds everywhere. I will be honest we are still thinking about how to replace it. The bed has been mulched with our compost so the spring bulbs will just have to push through this.
To the right of the pond there are two roses against the wall Rosa Alister Stella Grey and Rosa Crown Princess Margareta. There is not really enough space here for them but with a bit of help they have been squeezed in. Eventually Alister Stella Grey will grow to the top of the wall.
Looking back to the pergola the roses Rosa Gloire de Dijon and Rosa Souvenir de la Malmaison growing up the pergola legs have been pruned and generally tidied up. The plastic sheet on the right is where we have a small peach tree and it is to prevent peach leaf curl. It will be covered until May. On the right the roses have yet to be sorted out although they do not look too bad.
This is a shot taken in a direction I have often shown:
It is hard to believe this is the same border!
Another piece of pruning that has been done can be seen here. The Pyracantha Orange Glow is in the process of being trained horizontally. It is straight forward to do but just takes time. There are three Rosa Jacques Cartier in front of the Pyracantha so later in the year it is not very visible but right now it looks great.
Do have a look at Helen The Patient Gardener’s blog where you fill find links to other gardens at the end of January. Thank you to Helen for hosting this meme.
The weather continues to be foggy and damp restricting the time in the garden. Main activity continues to be cleaning up dead herbaceous leaves etc.
| Gardening Hours | ||
| This week | Total since June 19th | Average per week |
| 12 | 550 | 17 |
Everywhere there are signs that spring is on its way. Snowdrops are beginning to come through all over the garden. The Hakonechloa macra (above) has been cut back to make way for the spring bulbs; snowdrops, crocus and Anemone Nemerosa. Elsewhere the new growth is emerging.
At the end of last year we had a long holiday travelling in Myanmar and Thailand. Part of this trip involved travelling by boat up the Chindwin River from Monywa to Homalin which is very close to the Indian border. In order to get as far as Homalin you need to travel during or just after the rainy season. We went in November and by December the water level would have dropped too far for the boat to get up the river. The boat takes you to places that are very remote and away from the normal tourist trail.
The Chindwin River and the boats we traveled on. On this particular trip there were two boats, the nearer one with 8 guests and the further one with 16 guests. The river floods every rainy season (April to October) but even in November the water level had dropped significantly as you can see along the banks.
Each village has its own school which we would visit. The schools are often basic but it appears that all the children attend school and many have extra tuition after school hours.
As tourists were not often visiting we quickly became the centre of attraction whenever we went ashore. 
Travelling along the river you could never forget you were in Myanmar with temples and stupas along the banks and on the hills. 
The markets sold everything for living. Many of the tools were clearly locally made and who would not want a watering can like these!
I would recommend this trip to anyone who wants to see a bit more of Myanmar than the classic tourist route. The company who run the boats are 
It has been a cold, wet and windy week so I thought I would share with you some of the delights from spring and summer.
The pleached lime hedge in full summer splendor and below a week ago. 
If you get the leaflet from the RHS on pleaching hedges then they suggest putting in metal posts with wires to train the horizontals as they grow. At the time I certainly did not have the time or inclination to set up the wires so I created a frame using bamboo fixed to the trees themselves. 
Each year the hedge was tied in and, as the trees grow, new bamboo layers were fixed in place to train in the new growth.
The photograph above is about the third summer after planting.
The hedge above is at the height we have had it for many years. The bamboo frame has more or less rotted away and we think the hedge looks great. .In spring the alliums stand out against the new leaves of the hedge and roses.
And in summer the roses come into their own. In this photograph there are a lot of allium seed heads which I remove as I have found that leaving them results in far too many alliums the following year.
Rosa Alfred de Dalmas is a Mossy Damask shrub rose with creamy pink, semi-double cupped flowers with yellow stamens, and a delicate sweet scent that attracts pollinators. It flowers from mid-June to November and benefits from lush foliage and tidy manageable growth. Its moss is greeny pink, turning to russet red on older shoots.
Once a year there is a significant job to be done to keep the border looking good. 
First the roses are cut back and any dead wood is removed. The vertical bamboo are a relatively new addition. I have planted a range of clematis that are designed to grow into the hedge to give late summer interest. It is early days but it seems to work. The clematis are Clematis Blue Angel, Clematis Perle d’Azur and Clematis Ville de Lyon.
The side of the hedge facing the lawn together with the top is then cut. I find it is best to do this with secateurs either reducing the shoots to a single bud or weaving the shoot into the structure as required.
Almost complete, just the cuttings to shred ready for the compost!
The finished hedge. A once a year job but it is worth it giving a unique pleached lime hedge.
Technically the hedge is not a traditional pleached lime hedge which would have very distinct horizontals. 
However, take a look at the pruned hedge and you can see that it creates an enormous amount of winter interest and makes an effective hedge.
Glebe House Garden 