We gave the garden a week to recover from the recent big interventions. During that time there was also a major downpour, which helped.

The apricot rose has responded well to its liberation from ivy and bindweed and has an encouraging number of flowers and buds. The pittosporum has survived and its leaves almost sparkled in the sunlight, against the shadows of the yucca.

This weekend’s task was to make a serious attempt at clearing one of the borders back to the fence, to discover if anything survives in it that’s more interesting than the smothering honeysuckle.

I was also hoping to plant a few new things in areas which have been cleared and start getting mulch down. That was definitely over-optimistic. The ground is compacted by drought and ancient roots and it will take a lot of rain and some serious digging before I can even begin to think about new planting.

I also really wanted to get the pond clear so that next time it rains it can start the process of refilling with clean water. Good progress here, but even a small pond can accumulate amazing quantities of foul-smelling rubbish and it will take a couple more goes to get it really clear. I’m piling the rotting vegetation that comes out by the side of the pond so that water can run back in and anything that might have managed to survive in the bottom can creep back into the remaining liquid.

Those were the aims. I made a lot of progress in clearing back one of the borders. But completely underestimated the time taken to bag up the material that I had cut down. 2 hours working back towards the fence and then 4 hours chopping it into pieces that would fit into rubbish bags.

Why so much slower than the last big push? Firstly – no brother. He’s taller and stronger than me and a huge help: not least by setting a fearsome pace and not getting depressed by the scale of the mess. Secondly – no skip. Last time it was possible to drag whole branches through to the skip and not worry about cutting them down. And thirdly – no soft target. Last time, after an hour of reducing a hedge or removing brambles, I’d spend a while on the apricot rose and could almost see it responding in real time. Bagging things up takes for ever for no obvious impact on the garden itself.

However: a ridiculously fat and bossy robin spent much of the time bouncing around my feet, demanding that I turn over another heap of twigs and leaves so that it could find food; I discovered a good pyracantha hiding at the back of the border and freed it from the honeysuckle, and it is now possible to walk straight up the steps from the patio without dodging brambles, holly and the sharp edges of dead branches.

And there are little splashes of colour around the garden if I look hard enough: a small red rose, the berries of the mountain ash and a few fat apples:

And in the house, a reminder that occasionally a plant has a moment of perfection: