Anyway, 'fruit cage' before, in mid-winter.
And by the end of the month, the framework was up and we had sourced a net which would cover it in one piece and was an offcut from a commercial job.
The main 'Dave versus nature' challenge was to keep the sparrows out of the chook run. It seemed we were feeding the whole of the local sparrow population and while 1 sparrow cannot eat very much at a time, a constant stream of them can get through quite a lot. Anyway, after several attempts, and the compulsory white shoe laces, he came up with the winning solution. It even managed to keep out our neighbour, Paris, who comes each week with some very welcome scraps for the chooks!
Overall, winter had been very mild with the result that many of the plants were fooled and did their spring stuff far too early. The camellia hedge was not exactly thriving but it was still alive ...
... and blooming.
You could actually see the newly planted natives on Brambly bank and only a few succumbed to the cold on the few nights we had a frost.
The magnolias bloomed again although this was rather hidden behind their wind netting cages. Maybe next year we will expose them to their full glory.
... as were the daffodils.
And the daffodils down the drive were appearing - mainly classic yellow ones first but hopefully the double frilly ones will remember to flower too.
There was blossom in the orchard too, though I was a bit worried that just one plum tree was flowering there rather a long way away from the other one in flower in the vege patch. I was almost tempted to get out my paint brush but decided to leave it to the bees in the end. We will see if they were up to the job.
And finally, I was relieved that the two planters in the breezeway survived the winter and in fact were thriving. The orchids were blooming as never before and clearly preferred this to their previous pampered life indoors.
