sequestering carbon, several books at a time CXXXIII

 The latest batch:

the age of the tree

We have a couple of fastigiate hornbeams in the garden, planted about 20 years ago.  We've had them trimmed a few times, but they had got rather large again.  Since we are planning on get some more solar panels, to go on the garage roof right next to them, we got them severely trimmed so they wouldn't cast shadows.  This involved "trimming" some quite large branches, and we realised we could see the tree rings!

so yes, it's about 20 years old...

Covid-19 diary: booster 2023

I had my Covid autumn booster and my flu jab today.  My GP surgery is no longer doing the jabs, so I had to drive to a pharmacy in the next town to get it.  I had booked the Covid jab via the NHS website, and when I arrived at the pharmacy for it, they asked if I wanted a flu jab as well.  Yes please!

As before, Covid jab in left arm, flu in right.

Superpowers, engage!

box woes

We have quite a lot of box hedging in our garden, and are dreading the day box blight afflicts us.  Last week we noticed lots of bare patches, and thought it had finally arrived.  But on closer inspection it didn't look like blight.

That's not blight.  It's been munched!  Even closer inspection revealed caterpillars...

Some googling suggested these might be due to invasive box-tree moth caterpillars.  Further googling suggested a pheromone trap might help if that was the case.  Off to buy a pheromone trap...

After hanging it in the garden for only a couple of days, the diagnosis was confirmed:

my god, it's full of moths!

Hopefully that's stopped any further caterpillars this year.  If we hang it out next spring, we should be able to stop a recurrence.  And the box has grown back a bit.  So that's all good.  Until the box blight eventually hits...

sequestering carbon, several books at a time CXXXII

The latest batch: