Mint manoeuvres!!

When we built the last two spa suites in the garden we had to relocate the old green house which had been recovered by my parents in 1973 when they arrived at eriska. They had been faced with a weak wooden frame with little glass and a great deal of wild plant life escaping to the sunshine with little control. After killing back the weeds and re-glazing the frame it had been utilized but in reality times had changed and newer materials had made modern glasshouses far more productive and it had outlived its usefulness.

So when the new spa suites were begun it was removed and the area in front of the green house which housed the rhubarb, horseradish and mint was all raked over and the roots transplanted and the remainder removed to the old dump area by the driving range. Due to the time of year and lack of attention some transplantation worked better than others for example the rhubarb is flourishing but the mint and horseradish has suffered and whether it will ever be as rampant as before will need to be seen but probably the greatest fault is the fact that we have moved them from really dead ground with little drainage or nutrients to ideal growing conditions and clearly neither are really suited to the new habitat.

However the good news is that the remainder of the roots that we simply dumped in a large pile by the driving range has adapted and grown like wild fire so last night during dinner and anode round of pimms was ordered I had to set off over the croquet lawn and off to the driving range in search of mint, luckily a returned with a large clump as a mojito had also been requested and even between I returned smelling of a combination of spearmint and lemon mint!!  Just shows that sometimes natures course is better left on its own!