Sweet Woodruff

Sweet Woodruff - before the cat incident

This has been a real labour of love. I bought seeds of Sweet Woodruff (Galium Odoratum) 2 years ago. It's a lovely, slightly invasive, but tough little herb great for tricky sites in dry shade. What I didn't realise was that the seeds needed stratification before they would germinate (ie they need to be kept very cold for a bit to trick them into thinking they've gone through winter and into spring). So instead of putting them in the freezer for a few weeks I decided to leave them out in a pot over winter for real. 5 months later, they'd germinated (I was surprised it worked - I've not done it before), and once they'd grown on a bit I hurriedly and rather badly planted them under our silver birch last Autumn just before leaving for America for several months. When I came back in midwinter they seemed to be dead, but then, last week I noticed these tiny green stars emerging. I carefully cleared the area around them of weeds to give them space to grow.

This weekend I checked on the plants again. Our two cats had obviously spotted the bare earth and thought I'd made them a brand new garden litter tray. Two giant turds right on top of the little seedlings. Thanks guys...