Right plant, wrong place. I spotted the rosettes of five Ornopordum acanthum self-seeded behind one of the buildings at the music school. Not a prominent spot for this tall, architectural biennial which is worthy of a place in any herbaceous border. Sometimes called the Scotch Thistle or the Cotton Thistle it can grow up to three metres with vivid purple thistle-like flower heads.

 So I carefully dug them up, teasing the tap root out of the soil and replanted them in a mixed border among ornamental grasses. I notice the Beth Chatto nursery is selling O. acanthum at £10.90 a pot so that would be fifty quid's worth! 

 Here is some of the good stuff. Lovely loamy, crumbly, well-rotted compost. About two years old, a mixture of garden 'waste' and kitchen scraps. 

 

 An annual ritual. I hard prune the enormous Fig tree (planted by my father several decades ago). Then I put the branches through the shredder which produces several barrow loads of wood chip. I wheel them down to the allotment and mulch the Rhubarb patch. Locally sourced, zero air miles!

 

 I left the dry stems to overwinter in the meadow at the music school. With new growth well underway at ground level I cut them down with the brushcutter this morning. It would be traditional to use a scythe, then again this is an area sowed with wildflower seed rather than an ancient natural meadow.

 When I see frogspawn I know spring has arrived.

 

Spring has sprung.

 

 The sap is rising! Pruning various Fig trees lately, note the milky white sap at the core of the stem. They are best pruned in late winter when the sap bleeds less. Partly that is for the health of the tree, also for the health of the gardener. 

 I gave myself some nasty blotches of phytophotodermatitis last summer when I cut back a Fig. The milky sap on skin reacts with sunlight to the extent of causing a second degree burn a day or two after exposure. These ones seem to be pretty sappy already, perhaps due to the mild weather