Over the hedge

Giz a job

Last Sunday. The whole day in. Yay! But which job to tackle? I could stay indoors & sugar soap the walls of the hall loo... Nah, let's get outside!

But which outdoor job? Both lawns were buzzed during the week so I get to pick something else - double yay!

Weeding one of the beds would be good, but I still don't know what half the stuff is. Plus the thought makes my heart sink as there's soooo much to do.

The previous owner, Mrs |H, clearly had maintenance fatigue too...

 

How do I re-home saplings?

I could do a round of sapling eviction. Living on the edge of a wood it's no great surprise that it wants to claim our garden for itself. We have lots of vigorous youngsters that will totally dominate if they stay. I'd really like to donate them cos it seems a shame to trash them, but I've not found anyone willing to take them. Any ideas?

Go with your gut

Finally I use the decision-making technique we've adopted since moving - fix whatever's pissing you off the most. & casting an eye over the South Lawn, it's the overgrown hedge from next door. Don't get me wrong - the neighbours have done a fab job of keeping the level to about half a meter above the fence, but the hedge now overhangs on our side, & this house had been empty for a while before we moved in, so it's got a bit big...

The South East corner needs a haircut

 

It's so dark in that corner, Hubby thinks it's hampering the health of the Cherry tree that's down there. This member of the jury remains unconvinced about that theory but it'd be cool to neaten up that bit of the hedge. So let's have at it & test the Cherry theory - we can do science, us!

Getting cracking

First cut, along the fence line.

 

I kept a close line along the top of the fence.

 

Some of the panels have fallen in a bit, another sign of how unruly the hedge is getting, so we didn't think the folks next door would have any problem with this wrangling plan, but just to keep things friendly, we felt we needed a chat before tackling the biggest bit. However, the neighbours were out so I kept going with non-contentious bits.

As I pruned back, I discovered 2 shrubs. Unlike the lovely soft beech hedging, both of these were spiky spiny buggers. One was a large hawthorn, & its thorns were absolutely viscous. Time to get the welding gloves out.

Ouch! These guys take no prisoners.

 

Opps... we've found more garden...

Cutting it all back reveals a whole new corner of garden... I'm now wondering how wise this pruning plan was, cos the garden is already big enough!

I could hear Hubby talking, & twigged he had caught the returning neighbours. They gave the big trim their approval, so we started on the last bit.


The off-cut mountain grows...

 

Biggest last

The best point to cut the last big stem was over their side of the fence. With the neighbours' blessing in place, Hubby tied a rope above the cut, then I got busy with the saw.

I'm feeling the urge to stick googly eyes onto this pic...

 

As the branch started to fall, Hubby gave me the heads up. I ducked out of the way & he pulled it to safety. Like a well-oiled machine... ;)

Now we've just got the clear up to do...

Clear up operation

I hate the word 'just'. It's rarely true, & in my gardening experience, the clearing up always takes much longer than the job itself. I often try to clear up as I go, but those good intentions often evaporate once I'm stuck into the job.

There's a wheelbarrow under there somewhere...

 

We needed a strategy to process the huge pile of trimmings, so we set up a 4 pile system:

1. Composting leaves & twigs into the dumpy bag.
2. Firewood twigs into the round black bin.
3. Chunkier firewood into a pile.
4. Aggressive stuff (brambles, thorny things) into the garden waste wheelie bin.

Off-cut processing production line

 

Take a break

Half way through the heap & we're getting tired. The sun's come out, my head is starting to bake, & Hubby's getting blisters from all the snip snip snipping. The compost bin is full, the garden waste wheelie bin is almost full. We have a break while we reconsider our options.

Snax!

 

"How about we fill the dumpy bag and take it to the tip?"
Genius! Half & half seems fair to me. The rest of the trimmings can go onto the municipal compost heap.

Put a bit in, take a bit out

Talking of which, I totally failed to find any peat-free compost this week, but a friend reminded me about council compost. £3 a bag from the tip - bonzer :D We'll see how it is.

Why is it labelled "Soil conditioner", not "Compost"?
Should I be worried?

 

Job done

Stepping back, we start to realise what a big difference today's trim has made.

Before & after

 

1. We can now see the woods to the East, extending our views out.
2. This corner is in the South East, so when you stand here & look West across the garden, you'll get the last the evening sun before it snicks behind the house. Prime seating location I reckon, cos I love a garden seat, me.
3. It gives us a clue what sort of changes we'll get in this garden when we lower the Big Beech Hedge that is our Southern boundary.

That day gets ever closer, but we'll need help with that job...

 

How it's done

Last month my friend had a garden warming party. She's been in her new home for a year now & boy has she been busy.

The Layout

The North-facing front is paved parking so all the garden fun is out the back.

Previous owners added decking by the house to make the most of the Southern sunshine. The deck also organises the hefty level changes that come from living on the side of a hill. The staged drop to the main garden, combined with strategic boundary hedging, makes for a secluded spot, shielded from passing gusts & prying eyes.

Packed with treasure

I really struggled to get an overview photo that does the garden justice. This is a section from a Photosynth panoramic, hence the left hand bendy shed.

When my friend arrived a year ago, the main area was lawn with small edging borders and a couple of small trees, but it's all change now. The trees remain, jazzed up for the party with some beautiful glass globe tealight lanterns. But the changes are much more than a few cosmetic touches - the garden now has a series of distinct spaces, each with their own atmosphere - no mean feat in such a modest plot.

Moving left to right:

• Raised veg beds, on the deck near the house.
• Lounging seating area, also on the veg deck.
• Crafting hut terminating the veg deck (the bendy shed above). This doubled as the party's bar.
• Pond, in the back left corner - the latest addition.
• Pergola with chimenea, for evenings round the fire.
• Potting shed/glass house (right, above).
• Dining table & chairs on the right hand deck off the kitchen/conservatory.
  and finally, the star of the show
• Major central flower bed.

My friend used to work in horticulture so she's far more interested in a range of interesting plants than a monoculture. Up came the old central lawn, and in went the huge central bed. With a gravel edge and a winding bark chip path through the middle, you can get up close & personal with the planting, to weed or just to drool.

Here's some pics of my favourites - I have no idea what most of them are, so if you spot some familiar faces, please shout up!

Update

My friend has now kindly provided me with some names for the plants below. She's not 100% about them all, but hey, they'll be close enough & better than nowt!

Flowers

Thistle-type thing

Little spiky blue & silver thistle globes
Echinops ritro (globe thistle)

I've been looking longingly at thistles for a bit, but I hear they can be invasive - perhaps why this pale blue beauty is in a pot on the path.

Fiery daisy

There was a lot if buzzing in the garden but this clump of fiery daisies were particularly popular.
 

♪ Fire! (Do do do)... ♫
Helenium 'Sahin's Early Flowerer'

I love the flame coloured petals, surrounding a raised black pompom shot through with gold - just like glowing embers. Gorgeous.
 

Foliage

Freaky frenzy

The garden was packed with foliage of all shapes, all colours.

All the foliage
Sedum spectabile 'Autumn Joy'
Artemisia 'Powis Castle'
Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' (smoke bush)
Philadephus 'Belle Etoile' (mock orange)

What fabulous contrasts here, so much texture cheek by jowl. Just blew my mind.

The gold leaf edge is brighter than this pic shows
Berberis thunbergii 'Golden Ring'

Fancy corn

In pots dotted around the garden & deck were these statuesque sweetcorn stems.
 

Fancy candy-striped corn
Zea mays (Japanese ornamental corn)

 

She picked up these as seeds on holiday in Canada. I've seen multi-coloured corn cobs before but not on the plant. Those bold stripes remind me of the seaside windbreaks of my youth!

 

Frosted fern

Lots of leaves were from the red end of things, but some aren't always the same colour. There were nice examples of leaves that change colour as they mature.

Candy-floss fern
Sorbaria sorbifolia 'Sem'

I love this kind of thing - plants with changing interest as they age & with the season; so useful in small gardens where everything needs to work harder to earn its keep.
 

Green grey shrub

Along with the reds, hints of silver were another recurring foliage theme.

A wall of silver green fluff
Euphorbia characias

This beast sits below the crafting hut and was taller than me. It's cool to have interest at eye level, especially something so bold.

An old friend

Also below the hut was something more full-on silver; something familiar:

We used to have one of these!

I know this! It's a curry plant, so named cos it gives a fenugreeky niff when you brush past it. Ours is long gone, possibly due to over-zealous pruning on my part, but at least I now know who to talk to if I want to re-introduce it.
And I think I might.

Happy birthday to me-blog thing

26th August was the 1st Anniversary of my 1st post. Coinciding with Summer starting to head for the door, it seems a perfect time to reflect, tho maybe not in South Park style, on what I've learnt.

1. Do structural work in Winter

There were 3 structural jobs I wanted to do this year:

• Stairs & terracing in Stinky Dog Corner.
  Achievement unlocked! (as the kids say)
• Seating semi-circle around the gravel.
  Well I bought the sleepers... That counts as progress, right...?
• Wall consolation & seating in The White Corner.
  Yeah well given how much the wall has moved this year, it'll have demolished itself by the time I get around to it.

The only reason Stinky Dog Stairs got done was cos I did it in Winter (it was snowing ffs, but once I got going I was fine).

Working in Winter has a bunch of advantages:

• I don't overheatKey factor for me as I'm a bit prone to heat stroke.
  Heavy work = Tired.
  Tired + Overcooked brain = Losing a limb.
• No plants to knack
  All the annuals have gone, all the bulbs & most perennials are underground, leaving only me, the shrubs & trees. There's a lot more room to manoeuvre, & a lot less to get precious about, so I can get stuck in.
  
  Later in the year, when everything's up & leafy & growing, it seems like the height of bad manners to turf 'em up & mess 'em about.
  Plus they sulk:

You moved me!

Right in the middle of my big dance number!

How DARE you!

Well tough titty, big boots,

I'm going to cry for the rest of the season

& every time you look at me

you'll know it was

All.

Your.

Fault.

• I have the time
  I like to be a busy bee but things quieten down during the shortest days.

All this said, it would be nice to do the heavy work in more clement weather, but I now know this is delusional thinking. Even if all the above weren't true, big Summer work just won't happen as...

2. Summer is for having a life

I like to do stuff. Lots of stuff. In the Summer there's generally more stuff on. Can't do it all. Weekends get packed out with exciting new opportunities, leaving only the occasional day here & there, maybe the odd evening, to get out into the garden & tidy up a bit.

But that's OK cos...
 

3. Mowing the lawn = instant makeover

Such a quick job, such a transformation.
Dead easy to pop out on a sunny evening & give the grass a quick hoove.
The sharp contrast with the wild & unruly the beds works beautifully.
Full of win!

Unfortunately the mower doesn't quite get
the grass in the path gaps

4. Power tools rock!

As well as the mower, there's my new best friend: the hedge trimmer. Truly, it is a sword of power worthy of Hattori Hanzo himself. Even removing the cover feels like unsheathing a katana of legend.

The hedge trimmer has transformed the biggest job of the year - the annual hedge hack.

In the dark days of yore, attacking the hedge was a gruelling marathon. At least 3 sessions of hacking with shears & loppers, and then several more stuffing the trimmings into bag after bag, garden waste bin load after garden waste bin load.

But not this year - 2 sessions, all done. Woohoo!

Admittedly not all this is down to the awesome power of Excalibur. The odd Spring confused the crap out the laurel. Its initial growth was badly burnt by the late cold snap & only now has it started to recover. But I'll take any assistance on this mammoth task. The laurel is tougher than old boots; it'll be back to fight another year. But this year, it did not claim the lion's share of my Summer garden time, & there are no words for how grateful I am.

Not to say I am completely unscathed tho'...:

A bit of a poor effort by Emo standards

This? Yeah, well I sort of fell through the hedge.
Backwards.
yeah, yeah, laugh it up fuzzball...

I was stood on top of the wall, both hands on Excalibur. I needed to turn around.

When using the shears I'm happy to walk backwards, but when I have the trimmer out I prefer to see exactly where the cable is. 

As I was halfway through my pirouette, I started a slow fall backward... into a gap in the hedge.

Fortunately both hands were off the triggers so the blade wasn't spinning. Plus the hedge gap wasn't quite as wide as me, so I came to rest at a jaunty 45° recline. The ground level is much higher on the hedgeward side so I was able to stand.
In the hedge.
I felt like a pillock.
But it could've been sooooo much worse...

5. The hedge yields weird harvest

No hedge treasure during this year's annual haircut, apart from me, obvs.

The mug I once found in the hedge is a bit tatty so sits at the back of the cupboard & will do for decorating.

The lovely spotty pint glass was perfect & is now my regular garden refreshments glass. It makes me smirk every time I use it.

But it's not all treasure.

There's usually quite a lot of litter. To be expected really on an end of terrace.

The unripe apples were a disappointment - lobbed over the hedge & landing in the gravel with tell tale titchy teeth marks in them. Fortunately, & after a bit of a word, the kids didn't strip the tree completely bare, & 5 apples made it to full size... if not quite full maturity - scrumpers left us with 1, so we snaffled it ourselves.

A bit tart, & hopefully enough next year for a tart

But without doubt the weirdest thing to arrive over the hedge was the rat in a bag. Still no clue what the hell that was all about.

6. You tend vegetables

The flowers, fruit, herbs, trees & shrubs in our garden do a grand job of looking after themselves. Whether I'm out there or not, they carry on regardless.

I was keen to give more veg a go this year, & with hindsight I can see that I expected them to do just what the other plants do & get on with it.

But no. It was a endless round of sewing & potting on & watering & feeding... & I just could not be arsed. By mid-Summer I was proclaiming, loudly, to anyone who would listen & those who couldn't run away, that vegetables were needy. They wilted, they bolted, they got infested, they got nibbled, they got mangled. Jeez, what a bunch of lightweights!

Then I visited my Dad's garden & the truth slapped me in the face:
You get out what you put in.

I'd been expecting a free lunch, but we all know there's no such thing.

It's not been a total disaster though. A couple of tough buggers have soldiered on.

Courgettes

Still going strong, still flowering, still fruiting. The one veg plant that suits my inability to micro-manage.

Courgette flower in full pomp 

Radishes

They worked! First attempt with these this year & they're bright, fresh, crunchy & peppery. I'm chuffed to bits.

All shapes & colours from my mixed seed pack

Their location in the greenhouse might be unconventional but at least I could keep an eye on them, & the snails tend to stay out of there.

Borlotti beans

The snails definitely found the beans, but I'm surprised the damage wasn't more extensive.

Bit of a snail mauling in the middle there...

The snails first attacked while the pods were tender, so we harvested some beans then & Hubby steamed them whole, runner bean style.

At this end of the Summer the remainder have really taken on that trademark red colour, so hopefully we'll get beans too.

Onions

Yeah, not a great result here. In a variety of locations they've been universally terrible. These survivors are barely larger than the sets they started out as (20p off the right edge there for scale). But they've done better than their brethren, who are M.I.A....

Call them shallots?

The veg experiment has been interesting, but I think next year I'll look to expand hardy herb selection instead.

7. Seedlings compost is only for seedlings

The Greenhouse Guttering experiment has worked much better in Spring & Summer than it did over Winter. We had lots of salad leaves and tender herbs and things germinated very well in there... but they didn't last.

Hmm... row 2 looking a little dry there...

I finally twigged with the little gem lettuce: they were going well but after a little while they started to fade - literally. The colour started to leech from the leaves. Hubby was baffled. After a few days something pinged in my head: food. So he gave them some liquid feed & they perked right up again.

And then I remembered hearing that seed compost isn't like normal compost. It's finer plus it doesn't have as much nutritional content. So potting on isn't only about giving the roots more legroom, it's also about getting more scran into the soil.

8. Post it!

Not all the year's lessons are from out there. Some are from in here, in blogland.

Some posts have had a long gestation. I've still got Japan posts from Christmas sat in drafts. I have a phone memory card stacked with photos waiting to be processed. I have emails marked as unread so I don't forget to write about them.

All these posts sit in the back of my mind like gravel, grating away. They force "should" statements into my subconscious.

If I have a year 2 resolution, it'll be Post it!

It doesn't have to be perfect, but it needs to be out, or let go...

9. A diary, for me

When I started the blog, part of my motivation was to show the world that gardening is far more hit & miss than the experts would have us believe. But the way it's panned out, this blog is more like my gardening diary. It definitely feels like it's of more use to me than you. Does that sound rude?

Half way through the year I realised that to be useful to others, I'd have to be posting like clockwork & running around social medialand driving traffic to the site. Advertising to only my Facebook mates doesn't really get the message out there.

But frankly, what a chew on. It's got "time swamp" plastered all over it, & I already spend much longer writing about gardening than gardening.

Having said all that though...

10. Folk are actually interested

I've had some really nice comments about things I've written over the last year, & that's been unexpected. I'm frankly astonished that anyone takes the time to read these witterings.

& I love the stories it brings out of you. You tell me what you're up to & we all get to learn from each other. & that's great.

So thank you for taking the time. I'm really touched.

Hedge scalping 2: Send for reinforcements!

Back in September, I wrote about tackling the annual hedge trimathon. In part 1, I was steeling myself for the job ahead. Now in part 2, I'll take you though this year's change of strategy.

Every year I gripe about trimming the hedge cos it's such a chew on. But this year I decided it was time to garden smarter: I wheeled out the big guns.

Toys!

There are a lot of hedge trimmers on the market, but I have some key needs that quickly narrow the field:

1. Must be electric

Yeah, I've read it all about you get more oomph from petrol & electric trimmers are wimps. But we already have a petrol power tool in our arsenal, a strimmer, & I just can't start the fucker. All that priming, choke tickling, chord ripping nonsense, in this day & age?! Motorbikes have had starter motors for over 50 years ffs. No excuse for it. Get your act together, 2 stroke engineers!!!!

& relax...

moving on...

2. Must chop large sticks

The laurel is such a beast that strong green new growth can already be over 10mm diameter by mid summer. What a monster.

So I needed something with big sharp teeth AND the power to use them.

Final decision hung on power delivery...

3. Batteries v cable?

I was very tempted by batteries - Monty Don has extolled the virtues of the rechargeable batteries route, & I can see that having no trailing cable is handy when your garden covers half of Hampshire.

But on the flipside, I had read a number of reviews saying that whilst the batteries do fine in year 1, performance seriously drops of in years 2 & 3. New batteries every year or so? Doesn't sound very eco to me.

So, as our garden is small enough for every extremity to be in easy reach of a cable, cable it is. I'm pretty sure I can manage not to chop through it or trip over it. Pretty sure...

And the winner is...

Ladies & Gentleman, may I present to you, the Bosch AHS 7000 Pro-T.

Nope, no idea what AHS nor T stand for. Probably nowt...

Awww yeah. Check out that bad boy :)

5 stars on Amazon, plus loads of reviews confirming it's ability to mangle even the toughest customers. Some concerns about weight, but some others saying it's not really a bother...

A swift visit to B&Q & it's mine, all MINE!

Just imagine... I could be this happy when trimming the hedge...

Is that a light breeze or did the hedge just tremble? Mwhahahaha!

Hedge scalping 1: Know thine enemy

We meet again, my old adversary...

An 8m long wall of privet & cherry laurel runs along the South West wall of the garden. It's great for privacy, for both us & the nesting birds who love it so much. But left to its own devices it would blot out the sun.

Like this, only so thick you can't see through it... (pic from www.springreachnursery.co.uk)

The hedge was big when we moved in & as it's on the bit of land the Council mow, we thought they'd clip it. We thunk wrong, & it grew & it grew & it grew... until it reached the gutters. It was time to take drastic action.

My hubby is a little phobic of the snips, convinced that pruning = killing. & with good reason - we've had a few disasters & near misses is the past ("oh, that rose is meant to be that tall...") But I was pretty confident the privet & laurel would bounce back after a haircut. I mean, I've seen some pretty brutal hatchet jobs inflicted on privet, but I've never seen a dead one.

As ever, my pruning schedule is entirely driven by when I can be arsed. That said, the hedge gets special considerations cos of its residents:

1. Have all the birds flown?
   Some of 'em raise two broods each year so it pays to let it slide a bit.
2. Is it too waspy?
   This isn't for their safety but for mine: atop a step ladder, with shears, feyly, frantically, wafting at jaspers...? yeah, I don't want to become just another ROSPA stat.

Cherry Laurel in flower (pic from www.sciencephoto.com)

I try to get the hedge done before the laurel's berries have ripened. I've wussed out a couple of years in the past & my punishment is laurel seedlings in other parts of the garden. Great. More invasive brutes. Just what I need.

In previous years I've done the big hedge hack completely by hand, with shears, loppers & saw. This too is why the job is mammoth: it takes two days of exhausting chopping, followed by several more to gather, dismember & dispose of the offcuts. I thought gardening was meant to be about genteel pottering; this is more akin to the ethnic cleansing of Rhododendrons off the face of Snowdon.

So the hedge stands there, glowering. If I do any other garden job when its trim is overdue, I get a nagging, guilty feeling... cos I should be cutting the hedge.

It mocks me.

Time, I think, for a new strategy...

(to be continued...)