HH – you should have negotiated a bogof deal and got them to clean your bock paving too, plus your gutters must need cleaning 
One of my neighbours succumbed to such an ‘on the day’ offer a few years back and during the choir of chainsawing there was a thud and my broadband ceased. You can guess the rest.
Or more generally known as a Himalayan Birch, I planted 6 about 12 years ago but I do trim the lower branches in winter to keep them slender, otherwise they’ll just block too much light. Beautiful trees.
Sadly, much of the grass died off last year due to the absence of rain. I don’t mind the odd weed but the weed:grass balance had become unacceptable in areas.
I was guided never to leave cuttings on grass, rather it’s better to collect and scarify (not deeply), so as to give the existing and recovering grass more room to grow, obviously with watering from the sky or butts.
Our grass was totally brown last year, when we had all the hot weather. It’s never scarified and we leave the trimmings. It’s not lovely and healthy and vigorous, so maybe it’s worth trying a new approach. Yours is much more labour intensive and doesn’t seem to be working that well. A lawn full of flowers looks so much better than something that looks like a bowling green in my view.
Its all a matter of opinion I guess…to my mind what you are describing is more akin to a meadow…
And flowers (and weeds) are usually found in beds or borders in the garden/around a lawn (consisting of mainly grass),
Ours is definitely ‘mainly grass’ as you’ll see in the picture. That’s when it’s just cut, but very quickly it’s covered in daisies. We have plenty of clover, which the bees love. We also have self heal, which I initially tried to pull out but gave up. I now look forward to the purple flowers later in the year. There are a few horrible weeds with huge leaves, which I dig out with a trowel, but we never use chemicals. It just seems wrong.
Also, not a big fan of chemicals, a last resort to us…
Traditionally a garden is defined as “a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is control.”
Perhaps as some recompense for our destruction of the countryside, society is now relaxing its’ view on gardens in an attempt to alleviate the situation and/or feel less bad about it… 
Anyways, we digress….
That’s a great looking tree HH
Trunk colour much better than the silver birch accross the road 
Watching this year’s Chelsea has been fascinating, like watching the struggle between two worlds. When is a garden a garden? Perhaps it depends where in the world you live. Whatever, it’s lovely to have an outside space to potter about in.
Thanks. It makes for a nice contrast.
Well Done Ian.
Phil
Out of interest are you an RHS member? Something we have thought about but never had the time for as we are usually too busy gardening!
Phil
I was just part of an ad-hoc group that really annoyed our local council .
I must admit that not only was I very angry at what happened , I wanted to understand how it was done .
That is now with the external auditors
When I was a kid in NZ our family backyard had this massive birch tree / myself and my 2 brothers spent half our lives living in that tree , we loved it
For some reason the old man decided to get rid of it, we didn’t talk to him for quite a number of weeks !’
One of my favourite trees , occasionally I’ve seen them south of Sydney where it’s cooler
No, Phil, but my brother-in-law is and he got the tickets for us. Although we attended on a members’ day, they don’t have time to check membership on entry.
Out a little late for this mornings walk to find that the council has cut the verges along the forest and farmers path (they do that here as well as alongside the roads).
Unfortunately it has removed some of the wildflowers but this little stand escaped.
Went to the cinema last night to watch the Roger Waters live concert (This Is Not A Drill - Prague). The concert was good, but the sound mixing and reproduction in the cinema was appallingly bad. I guess that’s the risk with these things.
Hopefully a well mixed Dolby Atmos version will follow in due course.
Wow, not only have the last 24hrs being exciting…the last week or so has.
We are in Norfolk presently, just gone into a lovely cottage in Heacham for a couple of weeks,…
To cut a long story short, our Daughter was expecting our first Grandson circa the 29th May… she and Hubby live in Norfolk,.
We got a call last Sat early am, baby was limbering up for an early arrival…we packed up and drove down…the little fella popped out on Sun afternoon.
Incredible experience, 15 hrs in the Queen Elizabeth hospital…and we are now Grandparents.
Also, relatively excited about the new 350 and Nait 50, which provided a helpful distraction whilst pacing up and down the hospital corridors…
However, on cloud nine at the moment…no surprise…our other two offspring (boys) are due to arrive later this evening…
Celebrations to follow…
Interesting times…
Have a good weekend
Congratulations to all involved.
