Hop

They're really making themselves at home in my garden, those hops! I like them and they're welcome to stay, but every now and then I bring them back to earth before they can dominate whatever they are scrambling up and over. In this instance, I've no concerns - ti kouka can look after itself and a hop-festooned cabbage tree is going to look great, but when hops wind their viney selves through young apple trees, it's time to act. Birds like them though, as they provide extra cover for their nest sites. Yesterday I was enthusiastically pulling down an over-vigorous vine from the branches of a Bramley's Seedling when a sitting thrush screeched her objection to my industriousness. I stopped and she seems to have decided to plug on despite the extra exposure her nest has suffered. I say plug purposely. Those mother birds install themselves into those nest so tightly, not a drop of rain could get in to wet the partly-bald yunkers that huddle in the cusp of the nest. I'll make a hop pillow this year and give it to Robyn for her birthday :-)