The Raspberries are a maybe.

I was going to prune 60 or so trees this weekend. In the end I pruned none. But I did at least mow the orchard. And it was tough going.

But Mrs Llew finished pruning all the roses but one. And that one escapes for now because it's STILL flowering.

In other pruning news, Mrs llew pruned all the berry plants in the berry house. Yes, we have a bird proof berry house, in which reside strawberries (fruiting up until a month ago), blackberries, black & red currants, & raspberries.

Exhaustive notes were left for the pruning of these, and a book - the Berry Book - for all ancillary information. One problem was struck, in the notes, under the heading "Raspberries" the instructions were "Consult the Berry Book".

In the Berry Book, it says that there are two types of raspberries, those that should never be pruned, and those that should be shorn to ground level. There is nothing to indicate which type we have.

After some deliberation, Mrs Llew cut them just above ground level.

We've alerted the whanau that bulk raspberries may not be on the menu for Christmas. We'll see.

And we had a moment of alarm when we briefly thought a wind had stripped the nut trees of their just appearing flowers - they're brown now, but will change over the next month or so to a mix of white & pink, and I'm told the sight is quite something to behold.

Anyway, yesterday we were showing my mum around & she asked what were all the little flowers littered all over the ground. They hadn' been there the day before & we momentarily thought that it might be all over for next year's crop. They did look like macadamia flowers... But I discoverd some scrappy old trees in the neighbour's place, not nuts, goodness knows what they are, but they've shed their flowers all over my orchard. Good mulch.