Border control

Recent storms have seriously worried our tired East fence. Hubby's made some emergency repairs but they're only stop gaps. It needs replacing. Strengthening one's borders is just so on trend in Europe this Winter... *rollseyes*

We'll be delegating the carpentry to our mate. He's not due for a little while, which buys us time to clear away the shrubbery. This is double edged though, as we suspect the mature vegetation is now an integral, structural component of our shabby larch lap boundary.
 

There've been some hasty repairs during the Winter storms

A sword of power

The other year I bought Excalibur - a monster of a hedge trimmer. Time to wield it once more.

We've got 30m to clear so this is no time for subtlety. That goal has helped nip in the bud the usual dithering - no point in spending the whole day finessing the first metre; GET ON WITH IT!

We started with the biggest job - the North East border by the side of the drive. Even if we don't get the full length of the fence cleared, making a dent in this overgrown mass will be a significant step.
 

Before & After

Woohoo! What a difference. Some shape to that border looks great :) The fence, however.... :/

Discoveries

As we hacked through the thicket/border, some interesting things came to light. Now I think about it, I'm sure the TV gardeners have said that pruning is a great opportunity to check the general health & well being of your plants...

 

Disease

Bracket fungus on the broken bottle brush branch

In the depths of the bottle brush thingy there was a lot of dead wood. Not only dead but mushroomy. Looks like a large branch has broken near the base, & some time ago too. All of that has to come out, in case the fungus stresses the living bits.

New plants

Surprise! More plants!

Initially I thought "Wow, up to the yellow conifer all ready!" But when I stepped back, I realised I had unearthed a similar, separate, shorter conifer. Right. Just what this place needs...

Hard against the fence there was something else, but completely different. A clump of arrow straight, bright mid green stems. No idea what it is - it's bambooesque, but the leaves are wrong. I've cut it back to the ground & we'll see if it regenerates.

Litter

On the house side of the big yellow conifer I found the only litter stash of the day. I'm amazed there wasn't more. I used to find all sorts of treasure in the old hedge... but then that was a border with public land, so I've clearly not thought this through. Anyhoo...
 

Roof tiles, succulents &...

...a duck's head. Obvs.

Given the rather random mix of items, my best guess is they were dumped as the previous owners were clearing out... Who knows...

Team work & fitness

I can plan, but I'm also prone to getting caught up in the moment. If I've been putting a job off for a while, when I finally commit to doing it I tend to charge in headlong. But my energy is not boundless. When out walking, Hubby & I use a "percentage knackered" scale - if we're getting toward 50% knackered, it's time to head back. We had to instigate this cos I can be more stubborn than my body is able to cope with. Mind over matter is great in theory, but when the matter conks out, it takes the idiot mind down with it...

So, I would've done this job alone, bagging up the trimmings as I went. But hurrah! Hubby mucked in & tidied as I hacked.

1st load of several

And a bag of kindling for the fire

With the two of us on the case, we got the bulk of it done - all the way up the drive to the house.

There's a few bits left - at the side of the house & then by the South Lawn, but these will be a doddle as the borders are smaller & the plants less massive.

How heavy is heavy?

When I bought Excalibur, the reviews were divided: "Too heavy!" said a few. "Absolute pish" others replied. Of course, how heavy something feels to you depends on how strong you are & how long you're holding the damn thing for...

Excalibur is quite heavy for me, but has been fine as long as I take regular breaks to let my arms recover. During one such break in this job I realised my left hand was losing the ability to grip my drink - a sign of my forearm muscles getting a caning I think. Excalibur is a 2-handed sword, so my left arm was getting way more exercise than it's used to.

By the time we'd bagged up the last of the day's trimmings, I was proper goosed; a good 70% knackered. Fortunately the sofa wasn't very far away, so I adjourned there... for the rest of the weekend. Come Monday I was still pretty achy, & then on Tuesday my right groin gave out down the skate park - definitely not a place to be nursing flaky muscles.

Rather than attack jobs like the Tazmanian Devil, I wonder if I can get into the habit of 'little & often'...? Probably not.

A few weeks later...

Panels? What panels?

Another storm came in. Yep, those plants definitely were protecting the fence from the worst of the weather. Oops.

Ah well, less demolition required when the fencing folk arrive.

Update

New fence is in!

Looking golden in the evening sun

The fencers were super speedy & the new boundary was up in 2 days. Rather than panels between the posts, we've gone for individual boards, so we can smoothly follow the curves of the slopes.

Hedgehog hole all part of the service.

Much better, & the neighbours are happy too.

Mouldy trees, part 2

In October, tree surgeons lowered our South Beech Hedge & gave us some advice on the ailing trees in the South Lawn. This month, they came back to trim back the North Leylandii hedge & to take the poorly trees down... :(

Rip it off like a plaster

As I posted last time, since the triage trim the trees had taken a turn for the worse. Every time I looked at them, it made me sad to know they were dying.

Whereas every time I looked at the Leylandii (every morning - they're part of my breakfast view), they seemed to be taller. I have literally been watching them grow, swamping the oak & the birches at either end of them.

In both cases, I thought it best not to prolong the agony:

1. The sooner the Leylandii are curtailed, the easier it will be to maintain them in the future.
2. The sooner the dying Cherry & Laburnum are out, the sooner we can get in something healthy. 

But it would appear that these thoughts were mostly in my own head... apart from contacting the tree surgeons for a quote, I definitely did that bit out loud. But crucially I hadn't really chatted to hubby about it... well, I might have, but he was probably jet lagged at the time so it doesn't count.

So it was a shock to him when I wanted to discuss the quote. Whilst he could see my logic was sound, it was all a bit, well, sudden. He's suspicious of pruning at the best of times, & we're still getting used to the open, bordering-on-exposed feeling from the lowered Beech Hedge. Removing the 2 ill trees will remove our last bit of cover to the South.

But fair play to him, in the spirit of "Do something rather than do nothing", he agreed, & so I mobilised the troops.

Nice day for it

I'm on my Xmas hols now (woop!) so I was home the day the tree surgeons came. We confirmed we were dropping the Leylandii by a third & the 2 sick trees were coming out completely. Unfortunately, these guys don't offer stump removal so we've decided to save that cash for now - we might have them ground out later, when we're feeling more flush.

I left them to it, heading out walking with a mate - after, that is, she'd asked them to quote for her too ;) We weren't out for long though. The plan was to take her dogs to the top of Simonside crag, but it was soooooo windy we stuck to the shorter route along the forest paths.

When we got back, most of the chainsaw action was done. The guy up the top was swaying all over, & loving it. He still had all his limbs by the end of the day too, which was nice.

The Laburnum is certainly pretty on the inside...
Does that make me sound like a homicidal maniac?



Revamped log pile topped up with all the new off-cuts

Too much?

Neither of us go to the hairdressers very often, mostly cos of that feeling when you leave & you realise they've been a little enthusiastic...

As a species, we like to kid ourselves we're logically beings. But really, we're a seething vat of emotional soup with a gift for plausible post-rationalisation.

Now you see 'em...

As sad as it was looking at dying trees, it's really bare out there on the South Lawn now... :/
Hubby summed it up: The heart's gone from the garden.

Fuck.

The Laburnum is the biggest miss - hardly surprising as it was slap bang in the middle.

What to do, what to do? Have I already done too much...?

Moving forward

Playing with trees is always a long long game, & I need to keep this in mind. 

The logic is still sound: they were dying; sooner out, sooner replaced, sooner something beautiful & healthy. So rather than dally with the ultimately useless regret that's creeping around in the shadows of my mind, it's time to get busy deciding what trees we're going to plant next year, whilst gazing at the extra splash of deep blue Northern sky afforded by the shorter Leylandii.

Crap photo alert. The sky was blue, honest.

Anyone got any suggestions for medium sized feature trees for a South facing lawn on clay soil with intermittent drainage issues? Am I sounding panicked? :/

Mouldy trees

Sad times - the trees in the South Lawn are not well.

Both the Laburnum & the Cherry have struggled this year. 

We conjectured the cause:

• Not enough light?
  The cherry in particular is hard up against the tall South Hedge. Maybe that's why all the leaves are up the top?
  
  
• Water logged?
  We're sat on a hill of clay & the garden was sopping over Winter. But then again it's been a long, dry Summer & there's no sign of a late recovery.
  
  
• Insect attack?
  We have a lot of red spider mites kicking around. I've heard gardeners whinge about them, although I've no idea exactly why.
  
  
• Age?
  Are they just old? The photo of the house we have from 1974 shows a blurry yellow smudge which implies the Laburnum in & established. If it was planted when the house was built, it'll be about 65-70 years old now. Not ancient then, heading into its twilight years.

I need a Doctor...

We've got more questions than answers. We need a pro.
So when Richard the tree surgeon came to quote for lowering the Big Beech Hedge (another story, another day), we asked his advice.
On the Cherry, he spotted some extensive bark damage on a low branch. Could it be birds...?

But then he spotted this:



Bracket fungus, right at the base of the trunk

Pants. It's right at the base of the trunk. He says it's pretty terminal. Sad times :(

As for the Laburnum, he wasn't sure.

He said he'd trim back the dead, dying & diseased, then we could see how they got on.

1 month later...

Oh dear. Both trees are sporting new & 'interesting' mould:



Ewww! Do you need ice cream with that?
Something gelatinous at the base of the Cherry.

A different mould, covering the end of a cut,
but also bursting out all the way up the Laburnum...

Looks like both will be hitting the log pile soon :(

Anyone got any tree replacement advice?

Is it a bad idea to plant healthy new sapplings in mouldy locations?

Sufferin' succulents

Earlier this Summer, I had a splurge down the garden centre...
(Insert your own Frankie Howerd/Kenneth Williams utterance here)

On succulents, madam. Titter ye not.

They looked amazing: each had a large rosette of fleshy leaves; one green & spiky, the other grey & rounded.

Sempervivum Calcareum

Echeveria Glacuca

Having not long created the eye-shaped bed in the middle of the garden, I'd already been pondering if I should theme it.
Low lying stuff? Certainly.
Alpines? Maybe...
Gravel garden? Could do...
These'll fit right in :)

Fend for yourselves

I have no experience with succulents, but I figured they'd be OK in our garden. Why such optimism? Well...:

• Some random interlopers have self-seeded into bits of the greenhouse frame, & seem very happy there,
  Plus
• The eye-bed is slap bang in the middle of the garden so it gets the most of whatever sun deigns to shine on us,
  Plus plus
• Our soil is ridiculously free draining - All that rain we've had these last few years? No flooding... well not in the garden anyway. The doors on the other hand...

The soil is not at all sandy. It's very dark. But the colour isn't from lovely composty loaminess, oh no... It's coal dust. They're still mining round here & I pull out a chunk of the black stuff every time I go weeding.

Will they cope? Who knows! Best bung 'em in & see how they do.

Some time later...

I checked on the succulents from time to time, & they seemed to be doing fine. Then about 2 months after planting, I was having a little weed of the eye bed, so gave them a bit of a closer inspection.

The green spiky one seemed happy as Larry. But the grey one.... the grey one was a different story...

Oh... now that's not right...

Oops. Now this pic doesn't do me justice - if it had looked like this I've spotted something was up immediately. No, what happened was: weed, weed, weed, fettle, hoe, hoe, knock, oop a leaf's fallen off... & another... oh dear... the whole top's off...

Clearing away all the loose leaves, the extent of the carnage became clear:

Food for worms... sadly

Yep, when the clean-up squad have moved in, such as those stripey grubs right & bottom of the main stem there, it's time to cut your losses.

I believe that children are our future

You might've noticed from the pictures at the top of the post that these plants both had a large central plant, with lots of little plants around the edge. The common name for these plants is Hen & Chicks - a bit of a leap of the imagination, but this is no time for semantic quibbling - Mum has died, I've got to think of the children. The children! Oh the humanity...

So, how does this work? Well the chicks sit on an umbilical cord of a stem from the mummy plant. But I've seen this sort of thing before, with the strawberries. They send out long runner stems, & then where the stems hit the ground, roots spring out & a new baby plant starts to grow.

Gingerly turning one of the babes over, I see this:

Lots of leaves, teeny roots

Woohoo! Roots! They might be teeny, but they're there alright. Which means I've got a fighting change of saving the babies. Right then, best get them rehoused.

Moving on up, moving on out

So what's gone wrong? Well I suspect that even though the eye-bed is so well drained, the plant was still just too soggy. & yes, this is pure guess work on my part, but I figure if I don't act now, all is lost.

The plan:

Move the kids into a pot

I can put it by the yard door so I can keep an eye on them. Plus pots dry out ridiculously quickly. Normally that would be a problem, but not with these fellas.

Make sure there's plenty of drainage

I took a pot & filled half of it with stones, crocks & pebbles. Not just the bottom inch or so; half the depth of the pot. The theory here is to provide the water to no excuse to stick around.

Then mixed some compost 1:1 with sand; yep, half compost, half sand. To be honest I think it should've been more sand, & may be the poor border soil rather than the compost, but I really couldn't send the babies to their new home on an empty stomach.

Sand & compost mix, plus lots of drainage

With a sharp knife, I careful cut the umbilical stem on each of the babies. Well, all but 1 as it had already broken free of its own accord - it clearly knew it was time to leave home.

I levelled the soil in the pot & then created a little depression for the base of each of the chicks, gently pressed each plant home. The fleshy leaves are deceptively fragile so I was extra careful so as not to damage them.

For the final bit of drainage, I surrounded the chicks with gravel. I figure that if they're up to their necks in pebbles, they'll be less likely to end up sitting in a puddle.

Rehoused, & happier..?

Hopefully they'll be fine. They've got a cold wet winter ahead. Fingers crossed they make it out the other side intact.

5 small ones in, but a big 1 out

It wasn't meant to be like this. Yesterday was meant to be a small potter with two key tasks:

1. Plant three free autumn-fruiting raspberry plants.
2. Plant a lovely white anemone next to a relocated shuttlecock fern.

Might even have time to plant some bulbs. A manageable agenda, relaxing even, & leaving plenty of time/energy for any little detour jobs that will inevitably catch my eye when I step outside...

More rasps, more of the time!

Free rasps taste better...

Yes, I know we've already got loads of raspberries, but a friend had three plants going spare. These will slot nicely into some gaps we have, plus they'll extend our raspberry season as these little feelas fruit in Autumn.

Only recently did I finally get my head around the concept of 'extending the season'. Loads of shows & articles talk about it, but I never really grasped the point of early & late version of the same thing. But after years of  mindlessly buying the same fruit & veg all year round, the food miles debate has finally helped this particular penny to drop for me. & if you too are still struggling to grasp what I'm blathering on about, here's my working out:

• Our raspberries fruit for about 3 weeks, around Wimbledon time. 3 weeks only. In a whole year.
• So, to have fresh raspberries at any other time of the year, I would have to buy them in.
• But when fresh rasps are out of season across the UK, they have to be shipped from overseas.
• Shipping British native fruit from the other side of the world just so I can have fresh rasps in December is a bit daft, & pretty eco-irresponsible.
• But... but... if I plant different varieties of rasps, varieties that fruit earlier or later than the ones I already have, then I can have home grown rasps all summer & into Autumn.
• & if I really must have rasps in December, I should stick any Summer surplus in the freezer.

Yay! Saving the planet has never been so tasty!

One rasp in, two to go...

So that's new rasps in old gaps, all watered in & labelled.

While I was in raspberry district, I tied in any additional growth on this Summer's canes. The stricter, Monty Don style regime plus the Alnwick garden head-bend I wrote about last time seems to be going ok: we've had some blustery days recently & everything is still in good nick. Plus that whole bed is still as tidy as when I did all that, so the compost mulch seems to be doing a good job of keeping the weeds down. Hooray!

Next...

Welcome to fern corner

The bottom right of the garden can get a bit gloomy under the long, long shadow cast by the huge hedge. So I've started filling it with ferns.

Fern corner - before

A couple of years ago, I bought a small pack of 4 varieties & planted them around the base of the forsythia. I had no idea exactly what they were, but there's a ferns article in this Saturday's Guardian Magazine, so at least I now know that the big fella at the back is a Japanese holly fern (& nice also to see that Hart's tongues are native - I'll hunt one of those out). Lord alone knows what the other 2 are though. & 1 poor soul has sunk without a trace, no doubt due to lack of sun - they were all the same size in the packet; how was I supposed to know how big they'd get? The packaging didn't even bother to give their names, let alone mention how lanky they'd be. Ah well, on the bright side, 3 survivors out of 4 is pretty good going for me.

Joining these hardy souls this weekend is a little shuttlecock fern. We have a huge one in the greenhouse, & a couple of years ago this spore-off-the-old-fern germinated & set up home at the foot of the compost bins. So last year I potted it up & dumped it in fern corner, to be "properly positioned later"... finally, it'll get it's toes in the soil.

A light in a dark place

Back when I planted the 1st 4 ferns, I also popped in some primroses & some white tulips, for some "splashes of seasonal colour" as the journos say. The blooms were part of a long term plan to try some of the design techniques I'd read about, which claim to make a short garden seem longer with only the power of strategic planting:

Strong colours & large things close by, pale colours & small things down the far end.

So about a month ago I bought a lovely anemone, to throw some more whites amongst the greens. & again I dumped the pot in the border & left it to be blown over several times under the guise of "checking it's in the right position"... I never learn...

But before those 2 finally get their roots in the ground, a few things have to come out - as you can see from the picture above, fern corner is a tad, erm, "wildlife". All the rampant herb robert, brambles and leggy buttercup thingies have to go.

Rotten discovery

Clearing the undergrowth, I find this sorry state:

Mouldy forsythia :(

Nope, that's not snow. That's mould. The forsythia has been here longer than us, & has quite a lot of dead wood at the back. I try to keep it tidy, but only in the last few years did I learn about the "flowers on last year's wood" business, so I've spent many years pruning it at the wrong time. But to be honest, I don't think this is a dodgy pruning problem. I suspect it's a combo of the very wet year we've had, plus the plant's age, plus its position - it's too close to the wall; smushed up against it, in fact.

This looks terminal. Oh crap, I think it'll have to come out. Which means it'll have to come out before I put the ferns in, which means it'll have to come out today... pants.

The Procrastination Distraction

Sounds like a Big Bang Theory episode, but it's the job I do while I avoid ripping out the mouldy forsythia. It wasn't on the list, but I need some thinking time.

Years ago I did my 1st bit of paving, & put a fan of clay bricks under one of the benches. I really like them, they make me smile every time I see them, but bare soil substrate with soil mortar means, surprise surprise, it's forever covered in weeds. No worries: 10 minutes scraping with the sharp edge of the hand trowel soon cleans them up lovely.

Freshly scraped under-seat bricks

I'll re-lay them. At some point. Later. Not today.

Out with the old...

Mind cleared, decision made: the forsythia's coming out. To be honest, it's not all bad news as one of the brambles is embedded in the bugger, so I can get rid of that at the same time. So, out come all the surrounding weeds. Out too comes the Japanese holly fern, otherwise I'd just trample it when trying to get the shrub stump up.

Lifting the fern is weird though, cos underneath it is a collection of shredded plastic. I'm baffled - I definitely did not plant that under there. & then I twig: must've been a mouse nest. I know we have rodents in the garden, & I'll write more about that another time. But it also explains why the bulbs I'm unearthing looked half chewed...

Fern shifted, it was time to tackle the stump. For this, I needed reinforcements...

Time to call in the professionals

I chop off all the long branches with the loppers, as far back to the stump as the loppers' jaws can manage. I then dig out the soil from around the base, trying to determine where the crown of the plant stops & the roots start. I find a root & it's big -  maybe 20mm diameter. The loppers can handle this so I take out a section. I find another root: it's massive. At least twice the size of the 1st, maybe more. I try the hand axe on this & Christ it's hard work - I had no idea! I can tell the axe is really sharp cos it's shaving the fern on my right if my swing is a little too wild. But I'm getting really tired really quickly & if I'm not careful I'll end up with the axe in my leg. I need another plan.

The saw is great. I've used it before on the demon laurel hedge from hell. It's quite hard work, but I find it's nowhere near as bad as the axe. But the saw is long, & the surrounding soil level means I'll have to cut though the thickest bit of the stump.

After what feels like ages sawing, but is probably only 5 mins (why do I hold my breath when I do this sort of thing?), I'm reassessing my options again. Time to try brute force. It's a risky strategy - only this week a friend did her back badly when trying to yank out a bramble. But I'm really tired now so my judgement is suffering.

I put my foot on one of the thick stumps at the back, hang on to the wall for stability, & give it a push with my leg. To my amazement, it moves! It moves loads! This job is much further on than I thought. Fantastic! A few more shoves, & it's up:

Uprooted

...in with the new

Lovely new anemone for fern corner

After the ugliness of the mouldy root, the anemone is just beautiful. Even though I've neglected it since I bought it, it had continued to flower away in the gloomy corner. This all bodes well, cos let's face it it'll be just as neglected for the rest of it's life. Autumn glamour with no effort - my kind of plant.

So I've got the flowers & the ferns. This time I'm positioning them properly - place them, & then plant them same day. Finally.

Positioning in pots before planting

All done

Fern corner - all done

So in the pic above:

• Anemone: back left.
• Japanese holly fern: back right, over the top of where the forsythia was... hopefully that mould wasn't soil-borne...
• Shuttlecock fern: middle left.
• Front left & right: the other unidentified ferns from the variety pack.

But this wasn't the end. Oh no. Cos all the stuff I've ripped out is filling the wheelbarrow & spilling over into a huge pile in the middle of the lawn. Compostable bits go into the compost, woody bits onto the wood pile, leaving 4 bags of green waste for the bin guys.

& in the 30 mins it took to tidy up, I got extra rewards for all my endeavour:

Revelation

All this waste could be produce. The garden produces so much green stuff every year & I'll I do is worry about harbouring endemic weeds & so rip most of it up to chuck it away. But with a bit more effort, all this greenery could be tasty & in my belly.

Wonder

Whilst filling the garden waste sacks, I heard honking geese. I looked up & against the deepening blue of the dusk sky I saw a huge V of birds heading South. Then 5 minutes later, a second group came up the street, no more than 20 metres off the ground. Amazing. Finally, as I put away the tools & drew the door to, I saw the misty full Moon rise. Just beautiful.