I've planted a mini orchard

 It's a lovely day for gardening and I've made the most of it this morning by planting a mini orchard using column/pillar trees.  There's two varieties of apple, two of plum and a pear.  There's already a duo pear with two varieties on one trunk in a huge tub so I have no worries about pollination. The reason I did this was that my beautiful fragrant Daphne has died and it's left a surprisingly big space. The mini orchard is situated on the north side of the garden so isn't going to shade out all the other plants in a year or two as it gets established.  As soon as it starts to push out some leaves I'll make a video and show you exactly where in the garden it is.  It'll be a few years before the trees are big enough to give us any fruit but anticipation is part of the joy in gardening. The suggested spacing is only twenty inches though I have given them a bit more than that. It's lovely to think that such a small space could potentially give us plenty of fruit to eat and store. Anyone can grow a column tree as they take up so little space. 

We think our little blue tits are on the point of fledging and they'll be gone by this coming weekend at the latest.  We are really going to miss the parents as they fly back and forth feeding the youngsters but it's nice to think a new family have been raised successfully.