The Shrubbery, north side

Reading from right to left: an ornamental crataegus hawthorn (barely visible), a riotous buddleia (the orange-ball variety), the bird bath and behind, a bushy box (no jokes, please) and behind that, what I think they call a flame tree or a fire tree. Moving left, the frame with the bird feeders, and a couple of self-seeded sunflowers, followed by a ceanothus (Californian Lilac), then a walnut, in which a passion flower is struggling to survive. After that, it's a confusion, with a low hebe, a struggling euonymus (spindleberry) and behind everything, a straggly thorn hedge with elder and elm in it. In the far left corner is what I am told is a bullace, which produces a sort of cherry-apple that you can't eat. The tall dead thing in the hedge is, or rather was, an elm, which succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease once the beetles penetrated it and took the deadly fungus in there. I leave it unchopped because birds love to perch on it, and are easy to see as there is no foliage.
If you think this is luxuriant (aka wild), wait till I tell you about the south shrubbery; I am quite sure you could lose a tribe of pygmies in it.


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