Chippings and Chopping

Earlier this week, I had a large load (about 6m³) of chippings delivered by a tree surgeon. He was very accommodating, as well as offering a good price, and they're split between the driveways, meaning they've been easier to move. The first task has been weeding the hedge up the side of the orchard, and giving it a thick layer of chippings. The plants are looking better than we feared, actually, and hopefully the hedge will grow on well over the next twelve months.

We also weeded the apple walk, and finally spread a good layer of chippings over the weed membrane that goes up the centre of it. More still went around the beech trees at the edge of the games lawn, and over the path in front. We've finally laid out membrane along the two paths of the herb garden, and covered with more chippings, and done the same up the two bare paths through the Colour Wheel to the future patio. We then topped up the paths through the kitchen garden, and, finally running low, used the last to weigh down some membrane in the copse, which we're going to slowly start bringing into cultivation, and not leave grassy.

Today, for a change, we chopped firewood.

Onions

We had thought we might get some weeding and lawn-mowing done this evening, but discovered two problems with that plan when we went outside.

Firstly, it was still a bit damp, and the mower doesn't collect wet clippings very well, which means a big raking-up job in addition to the mowing, of which I am not enamoured.

Secondly, there have clearly been deer rampaging through the garden in the last few days, and they've done distressing damage. They've stripped the leaves, flowers, and pods from the runner beans, climbing beans, peas, and French beans (no legumes this year, I suspect, now); nibbled the chicory and Japanese ginger; damaged a forsythia in the copse bed, munched some of a neighbouring heuchera or two; eaten a lot of the strawberry foliage (not necessarily a problem, this one, as that was due for trimming back, anyway); destroyed the last of the spinach; eaten several stems of tay- and loganberries (losing next year's crop); and—as best I can ascertain—done some sort of deer dance on top of the onions. I think it's their route from kitchen garden to games lawn.

Fortunately, the onions were pretty much going over, and ready to be lifted, although they also did a lot of damage to the weed membrane we grow the onions through, which means I'll have to replace, tediously, some of it. Nonetheless, it meant that this evening's job was lifting the onions, trimming their tops, and setting them out on racks in the wood shelter to dry.

We've put some deterrent barriers in what we think the deer's routes in have been: a few gaps in the bottom hedge, some tunnels between kitchen garden and games lawn, and over the wall behind the beech bench. Hopefully that will help. Liz is more sanguine about this than me, and reckons it's a price we pay for enjoying deer roaming on the hillside. I look at the losses and damage to plants, crops, and trees, and think thoughts of venison.

Last Few Jobs

I'm astonished to say that, of our list of jobs we made on Saturday for the past five days, we've actually done them all. Today, I've turned the compost heaps (decomposing beautifully); replaced the satellite cable and LNB (finally we have two signals to the box, reducing recording conflicts); we've painted the bike shelter (it'll need another coat or two, but there you go); installed the loft hatch in the garage (still so named!); and hung ladder hooks in the same (necessitated by putting a hatch in the hole they poked up through). Liz has done a thorough weed of the long border over the last couple of days, and it's looking loads better. We've also managed to move all the stone (and turf) that we put on the septic tank two years ago when digging the beds on either side. This is because, having transformed the garage, we want to get some of the garden tools out; but, lacking a shed, this is tricky. Our solution (long planned) will be a set of storage cupboards along the septic tank, within the living willow structure we're growing over it. Ideally, these will each have a little green roof, probably planted with alpines (which have their interest mostly in the spring, before the willow gets into full leaf). They arrive on Friday, so in order to assemble them this weekend, the tank top needs to be clear.

Having uncovered it, I've been reminded that two of the five manhole covers don't fit at all well. By which I mean they're alarmingly unstable, and seem too small. The concrete lid sections have also 'drifted' towards the bottom end of the tank. We've pushed them back together, but the covers are irredeemably too small. I shall buy a couple of new ones, and mortar them in, which will make it all rather safer.

While we've been working, the cats have kept us company. Chess found somewhere shady to nap (I don't know how he got through the latticework).

Chess sleeping inside a sweet-pea pyramid (© Ian 2014)

We're almost, but not quite, at the point of enough sweet-peas for every downstairs room.

Liz's sweet-pea (and berberis and alchemilla) flower display for the week (© Ian 2014)

Climbers' Supports

A mixed day off, today: Liz spent a lot of time getting beds weeded, which is tedious but necessary work. I've cut back the ivy and Virginia Creeper on the front of the house (the former was encroaching the dressing room window rather); re-attached the hanging basket bracket that came down over the winter; and repaired the bikes.

On Monday evening, Liz painted the feet of my sweet pea/legume support structures with bituminous paint, to protect them once they're underground, and we painted the above-ground bit with outdoor paint last night. That meant that this afternoon I was able to continue putting the woven willow sides into them, and we've now done two of the four sweet pea wigwams. (It's surprisingly slow work.)

We managed to spend fifteen minutes looking at the hillside. A lot of the hedging isn't doing so well, unfortunately: either deer or slugs, but we're not sure which, or whether it's just taking its time to come into leaf. Much better are the grafts, which appear to be mostly alive, and starting to break into leaf. And a lot of the apples, old and new, are in flower. A couple of the old trees, which bore really well last year, seem very light on flowers. We're not sure whether we've missed them/they're not out yet, or whether they're at risk of biennial bearing, having had such a good crop last year. Only time will tell.

Beech Bench

When we ordered our bare-root hedging last year, we included a couple of dozen extra purple beech. They've been waiting, heeled in in the vegetable garden, waiting for us to be ready to plant them.

On the north-west edge of the garden, there's a large elder, and a large lilac with a holly growing through it. Between the two, there's a roughly 12' gap, in which a smaller lilac, and a potentilla sat. I have nothing against lilacs, other than that their season of beauty is relatively short, and somewhat unreliable. The potentilla has been a stalwart. However, neither really enhances the boundary, and it feels rather open (nothing in the sight line to the neighbour's big windows.

When we visited York Gate, we saw (though I didn't comment on it here) a bench that had a high beech 'hedge' grown behind and around its sides. It gave a sheltered spot, and formed quite a feature. We thought that the spot between the bigger two trees would be ideal for one, where a bench on the edge of the games lawn would be nicely combined with a feature visible from across the lawn, at the arched entrance to that 'room'.

Of course, this meant moving the lilac. The potentilla was easy, and has gone into the long border, where it's nicely filled a gap on the left end. The lilac was less simple, but eventually we managed to trench around it, cut under it, and drag it to the opposite side of the garden (on runners, which made it easier, if not easy). There, on the raised bank at the edge of the garden, between a silver birch and a sycamore, we dug it a new hole, and planted it in. At the same point, we've given it a good prune, as the shocked and reduced roots won't support as large a canopy: the smaller silhouette will also catch the wind less until its better anchored.

The lilac is now roughly above the blue hose reel, from this angle, in this photo from last year (© Ian 2013–14)

The space, those two out, looked perfect, thankfully, so we marked out a space for a 6' bench, and cleared a suitable border around it, into which we've planted 25 of the bare-root hedging plants. They look awfully twig-like at this moment, of course. Hopefully, though, the beech will grow quickly (it should), and in a few years, we'll have a pleasant, sheltered spot to sit.

Purple beech (left) and 'Golden Hornet' crab-apple (right) (© Ian 2013–14)

After doing this, we then dug the hole for the crab-apple, 'Golden Hornet', that was also waiting in the kitchen garden. This was rather easier than the hole for, say, the apple walk, and was quickly the right size. The apple's now planted (exactly the same mycorrhizal/stake/cage regime as before!), centrally on the games lawn (compensating for a planned border on the lower edge, that is), and is a good focus from the future bench.

The last job of the day was taking two branches down from one of the silver birches at the top of the colour wheel, which were damaged in the high winds of Wednesday. Tomorrow morning, we should be sowing a load of seeds: sweet peas, cineraria, tomatoes, chillies, aubergines; as well as potting up the All Year Round cauliflowers we sowed last month.