And some more:
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Very nice indeed Mike👍
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Please meet my walnut tree. My neighbours put down their oak 4 years ago by mistake (they made a pavement next to it but cut main roots damaging the tree severely).
My walnut is vertically growing rapidly, I assume it tries to outgrow the bushes around it. The lower branches don’t look good. How shall I prune it, or is it better to replace the tree entirely by a different one which suits wet soil better?
It’s about 5m high currently.
Oh a reason to get a walnut is that they usually let light through which I like for sake of the rest of the garden.
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Unbelievable temperatures in Devon at the moment. Planted 500 tulip bulbs this afternoon and it was 25c. Felt the need to sink a few beers after that (for medicinal purposes).
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Your walnut does look a bit spindly. As far as I can see the site is not really shaded from above, so I’m not sure lack of light is causing this. If the soil is too wet that might not help. Is there any sign of disease in the branches without leaves? If so you should remove them - now would be a good time rather than leaving it until winter.
If you want to restrict its height, cut out the leader. Shortening the side branches encourages bushy growth. The problem you have is that a lot of the side branches only have foliage at the tip, so pruning them would remove nearly all of the leaves.
What are the soil conditions like? Walnut doesn’t like acidic soils or too much water. Mulch the soil below it, and feed it in the spring.
The difficult choice is when to cut your losses and replace it. Try to help it, and you won’t know whether or not you have been successful until next summer at the earliest. If it doesn’t respond you will regret not having replaced it sooner, winter being the time to plant new trees.
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Lovely garden in a fabulous setting - enjoy the spring 
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I assume that the wet soil is the issue. There was a small canal in this place hundreds of years ago to ship local products to the city (The Netherlands had up to mid 19th century more waterways than roads).
I’m going to consider to replace it by something else and replant this walnut in a different spot.
Probably a good idea, there are plenty of trees that are more tolerant of wet soil.
I’m not sure the walnut will like being moved. It will depend on whether you can avoid root damage, so try to remove it with a large rootball attached.
Walnut is one of those plants that release chemicals into the soil that are toxic to other plants, to supress competition. I don’t know how much effect this would have around a young tree like yours, but maybe take plenty of the soil away when you move it.
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The garden has been neglected for various reasons, the holly tree has doubled in height over the past couple of years, but I have never seen so many berries, so pruning will have wait until the birds have finished.
The anonymous clematis has burst into flower over the last week, looking good in thd sunshine.
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We planted this birch as a little sapling and as it’s grown it’s got more lovely. The big attraction is the amazing white bark in winter, but its autumn colour is always a surprise. It’s in the front garden; the standard birches are on the other side of our road. I took the picture from our bedroom window. It’s always lovely to see it out there.
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Here here.
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My bro and sis in law just dropped off a Vibernum:
It was in their garden but since they have a small garden it dominated it too much. It has a very nice shape so I volunteered to give it a new spot.
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Took a snap at dusk this evening of acer ‘Jordan’ - a beautiful tree. It has acid green leaves in spring/summer and then it turns red/orange for a few weeks in autumn. Love the creeping change in the leaf colour.
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Picked this up at the weekend. Gymnocalycium mihanovichii variegata. Cute little thing. No two are the same and this pink/yellow with stripes looked particularly special. Nice gift for someone. Seems to be a batch hitting the shops/internet at the moment.
As usual, nearly all of the sites just copy’n’paste the info and they’re wrong. These are not grafted plants, they’re seed grown, on their own roots.
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