I took Matt and Sam down to the allotment this morning and let them loose on the fruit trees. Sam didn’t take much off the pear, but Matt happily did some major pruning on the apple tree in just a few minutes. The main branch was cut off cleanly with just a couple of strokes. Also particularly pleasing: the smaller branches were put on my compost heap, but cut up first, not just dumped.

I stayed behind after they’d gone and finished the cutting down along the right hand side. Tomorrow I’ll be scratching myself silly when I attack the verbenas.