Redesigning the Knot Garden

The herb garden's been in the planning for some time, and the design's evolved in the making. Originally, we thought we'd have just box edging, and primarily herbs. We added roses to the planting, and lavender to the edging. Then, when we worked on the design, rather than the concept, we came up with something that needed three edging materials to work well, and so we added step-over apples. The last couple of years of growing the kitchen garden suggested that we actually needed a little extra edibles space, and so we added runner beans, peas, and French beans to the planting -- which helped with height -- and then over-wintered onions, garlic, and elephant garlic. Trying the design last year made it clear that the squares of the design weren't really big enough, so we made them 50% larger. In turn, that meant the design changed, and now we need only two edging types once more. The design, now, is really one of a potager, or ornamental kitchen garden, encompassing roses (technically edible), herbs, apples, and ornamental vegetables -- the attractively podded (and flowered) Shiraz mange tout, Blue Cocoa runner beans, and red/purple Brussels sprouts. Out have gone the inedible box (now to form evergreen box balls in the herbaceous border), and a predominance of herbs.

This weekend, then, we've spent getting as far as possible with the new design. We got started on clearing the ground a week ago, and (after a vet trip that took much of the morning), continued this yesterday. We finished that by about mid-morning today, and then, in an afternoon punctuated by someone coming to finally take away the oil tank, finished preparing the ground by about 5 o'clock.

The oil tank, half-way out ( Ian 2014)

The oil tank has been waiting for removal for a while, and we eventually found someone who wanted it, thus avoiding having to pay (several hundred pounds) for someone to remove something we didn't want. Getting this heavy steel tank off its piers, missing the greenhouse (just the other side of the protective sheet of ply in the photo), across the patio, down two sleeper-built steps, and the length of the games- and pond gardens, and then up the driveway to the truck was, shall we say, tiring.

But now it's gone, and we have a 6x4 space in which a shed might go -- and now no smell of kerosene on warm days.

Now: back to the herb garden. We'd marked out the pattern (basically unchanged) last time, so apart from fine tuning a couple of measurements that had been hindered by rocks (which Liz made excellent progress moving: it really feels thankless work), we were able to immediately see where each square/diamond went.

Into several of these, I sank the climber supports, which Liz started yesterday by painting (I'd only done some of them). We've not had time to add the woven willow sides, so these will have to wait until autumn. For now, there are strings tied round them to get everything growing: they'll be invisible soon, and the willow will be in place for the winter, when it's actually meant to be an attractive feature.

Having sunk the six supports into the ground, we topped up the soil in all of the squares (but not the edges: lavender doesn't want rich soil) with compost, neatly finishing the 'ready' bay of compost, and started planting. The plants are mostly those that we potted up and set outside a few weeks ago, and included enough lavender to complete those edges that we've cleared space for (almost).

From the greenhouse have come the Laguna, Speedy, and Castendel French beans, the White Lady and Blue Cocoa runner beans, and the Shiraz and Delikata peas/mange tout. We've also planted out 32 red sprouts, a load of chicory, a dozen or so bronze fennel, a pot's worth of aniseed, and the Japanese ginger we bought at Tatton. All that obviously needed watering in, and tying to supports where necessary, and it's meant rather a late finish (I came in at 11, and Liz only came in half an hour earlier, to cook)...but it's looking really good.

Floor Finished

We made a list on Saturday morning of some things we wanted to try to do this weekend (a long one). Pleasing progress has been made, although, as it ever was, not quite everything happened.

Painting the last section (3/8ths) of the garage floor with bituminous sealant happened on Friday evening, Saturday lunch time, and Sunday morning. The plan was that the last coat (Sunday first thing) would then have a clear 24 hours to dry before we put the rest of the floor down.

Saturday morning, before we could do the second coat, we spent digging over a further section of knot garden. While I cut turves, and dug over the stony ground, Liz was busy clearing our stone dyke from last time. We've not worked on extending the herb garden since September, in order to get the overwintering alliums in the ground, so it's nice to once more make progress on it. Although we only did a couple of hours work (too hot!), we returned to the garden on Sunday, and have marked out anew the pattern. We needed to do this because we've changed our mind about the size of the squares (diamonds), which we decided were too small (roughly 1m edges), and needed to be 50% bigger. There wasn't quite enough space in them to allow planting, but still be able to walk through them.

The original (rough) plan for beds and edges in the herb garden (© Ian 2013–14)

That also means we'll only have two sorts of edge: lavender and step-over apples (which I'll try to graft over the winter). The box will be grown on to form box balls in the garden, instead of hedging: we think they might, for one thing, replace some of the Lady's Mantle that's really a weed in the long border. They'd occupy the same niche, of a rounded green mass, but with the advantage of year-round structure, and less invasive self-seeding.

The new pattern fits around the corner nicely, and finishes in about the same place, which is good. We then moved the part-painted climber supports into the beds, settling on a layout that has the taller of these forming a backdrop to the garden, in the boxes furthest from the house. There are only four of these at the moment, but I can always make more in time. The smaller are nearer the house, and there are squares that suitably frame views from the windows with supports. It looks very pleasing, and once the supports are painted, and sunk into the ground, I hope it's going to look really good.

On Saturday afternoon, we constructed a hinged roof that goes over the steps down into the wet cellar from the driveway, which will allow us to store bikes on the steps but keep the worst of the weather off them. It's a simple wooden frame, with tongue and groove cladding, but it looks quite smart...although it does draw my attention to the falling-apart (non-structural!) wall next to it, which edges the pathway. Another day's work there, I think. At the same time, Liz cleared the driveway of a pile of apple prunings that have been sat there drying: they'll be rather fragrant kindling next winter.

They've been sitting around for longer than they should (by some way, really), but we've bottled the five demijohns of wine that were waiting.

• Dandelion, from May 2013. For whatever reason, the dandelions rather passed me by this May, so I don't have a new batch on the go. This one seems good, though.
• Greengage from October (a more reasonable time-scale). This was slightly fizzy, so I added a Campden tablet, and bottled it a couple of days later. The taste seemed improved, too, after this.
• Elderflower from July: very good, this one.
• Blackberry from September, a predictably dessert-wine red. It was also slightly fizzy, but a tablet and 36 hours rest sorted this out.
• Chardonnay from a kit, in June last year. It's really rather Chardonnay-like!

In the same vein, this evening we've made a five-pint batch of elderflower cordial. Different process to previously: a dozen flowerheads, a pared then sliced lemon, and then a boiling sugar solution poured over them (1 pint water, 1lb10 sugar). You add 2.5tbsp of citric acid, once cool, and allow to sit for 24 hours before bottling.

The batch of cider that we pressed last autumn has, in turn, finally been racked into two demi-johns. It's not tasting quite 'right', but as I understand it, cider often needs a decent maturation period, so I'll bear with it.

Sunday afternoon was spent, largely, making a hatch for the garage loft, and putting up the last of the insulation. Hanging the hatch will have to wait until I've found the right hinges.

Today, then, was spent finishing the garage floor. The sealant paint was nicely dry by mid morning, so we were able to immediately start work on laying the insulation, screwing down the battens, and filling the gaps with solid insulation. The plywood sheets went on with relatively little fuss, so by about 1530 we'd finished. An hour later, and the room was tidied up, rather than having everything stacked into the half that had a floor, and we've even managed to set out the two armchairs we've had stored in a corner since 2009.

Last thing for the weekend was getting some of the preparatory work done for our new patio doors, which arrived on Friday. They're being fitted on Wednesday (including breaking out the hole for them, replacing the garden window in the dining room), and we've done as much fitting of hardware, and so on, as possible.

Blackthorn

Three weeks ago, we started clearing the swathe of blackthorn (sloe bush) that forms the back of the orchard. It's about 30' thick, in places, in front of a number of quite old and established trees. They're quite attractive, and the blackthorn's rather scrubby, dark, unproductive, and thorny. We've long intended to clear them, and increase the size of the orchard (our 'Chelsea' mulberry is waiting in its pot until we've cleared its space), as well as expose the more attractive treeline. There'll probably be some spaces, up against the trees, where we can plant small trees or shrubs, to get a transition from the more open orchard into the woodland.

First, though, the blackthorn needs to come down. We light a bonfire on the same spot as before, and I dragged brush to it while Liz worked on cutting down and disentangling the blackthorn. We're now probably two-thirds of the way through it, and progress is now visible from the orchard side of the bank: last time we worked from above, and were hollowing out of the stand. This time we broke through, and the chestnut that was hidden in a bight in the blackthorn has now been linked to the orchard properly. The solitary established apple tree that was separated from the others by blackthorn is now connected to the rest, too.

The fire was a bit tricky to get burning properly, but once it was going, a real depth of charcoal built up, and was so hot that anything thrown on rapidly ignited. We came in at about half-six, scratched and weary, but the mound of embers was still glowing brightly in the dark, when I went to check on it four hours later.

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.

A Trench or Two

We've spent our time outside this weekend digging the trenches for the apple walk. To start with, I had to demolish the large stone (boulder) that we uncovered last time. It took a bit of whacking with the sledge hammer, but I managed to make it small enough that we could drag it out of the area of the walk.

Unfortunately, I then found an even bigger stone sitting the middle of the other (lower) planting line. This one was massive: about 6' by 3', and at least a foot thick: probably the best part of a metric ton. A long while later, I managed to break it in two, then make the larger piece small enough to move out of the way. We've now finished, eventually, digging over the first trench, and will try to get the other one dug next weekend.

We also have to prepare enough ground for 18 rootstocks, for fruit we're planning to graft with material from the National Fruit Collection. The rootstocks should arrive later this month, and scion material thereafter. There's a good spot near the plums where they should all fit, bearing in mind that they'll be there about a year.

Start of a Break

We finished work for Christmas on Thursday, and spent Friday getting ourselves a little more organized for the holiday. There's a list of things we want/need to to get done, and I think we're on top of the urgent ones. Ideally, we'll spend a day quilting towards the end of the holiday, and there's some things we'd like to work on outside, weather permitting. There's always boring administrative things to get done inside, when the weather fails to cooperate (like filing the receipts for 2013...). We spent a lovely day with my parents yesterday, having a pre-Christmas dinner, and finally watching the first Hobbit film. The pork liver pâté we made in October (and froze in anticipation!) was delicious.

With some luck, we should be able to make progress on preparing the site of the apple walk. We started about a month ago, having had the idea back when we visited Barnsdale. The apple arch there (photo on this website), and a similar one in the Highgrove walled garden, are the kind of thing we're trying to create. Each side of a 33' long, 8' wide tunnel will have apple trees planted (every 3'; eleven up each side). They'll be trained up each arch of the walk (each arch being 4' vertical, then a 4' radius, 180° arch, and back down 4') to the top, where two apples will meet. They'll be trained into one-sided espaliers, with 3' long arms coming off every 18" or so, to create the structure of the apple walk.

Ideally, on a level site, each tree would have arms on both sides, half the length. However, because the walk is going to slope upwards, unavoidably, this won't work. Branches trained downhill will fail to grow.

We've got twenty apples on order, and I've found two more that I can obtain grafting material for, which we'll try grafting ourselves. They all originate (as far as we can tell) in Yorkshire, and date from Roman times, through Norman introductions, and the Victorian boom in apple varieties. Whimsically, we're going to arrange them chronologically, so that the oldest are at the top, and the most recent (just a few decades old) is at the bottom, or start.

However, long before it looks like anything at all, we need to smooth the plot, dig out the stones, and improve the soil. And, probably, dig some drainage.

Chippings

Back in June, we made some progress getting the paths in the kitchen garden towards their long-intended final state. They'd always been grass, in theory, which in reality meant mud down the middle, and weeds along the edges. Long dissatisfied with this, we wanted to level them, put down weed membrane, and lay a thick layer of chippings. This worked well in front of the woodstore, and so a week ago I arranged for our friendly tree surgeon to drop off a truck-load of sycamore chippings. This is the small branches, twigs, and leaves, put through a Timberwolf shredder. The mix is quite a lot like hedge clippings, which compost well, though it's probably got more wood in it. Anyway; while it's not as 'nice' as bark chippings, it has a lot to recommend it. It's free; it's a waste product that would otherwise be processed by someone into peat-free compost; it works well on paths to keep them weed-free and drier.

The biggest benefit: after a year, it should turn into really nice mulch.

We put a load of the chippings onto the paths, which now look really tidy. We then started scraping up the chippings from the front of the wood store, which have, now (after six months in a heap, and a year on the path) turned into really well broken down compost. That's been going on the sweet-pea beds, and we're about half way up the path, replacing it with new. We ran out of light, unfortunately, which is often the case at this time of year. Four weeks, I make it, until the solstice.

Other than that, we've started clearing and levelling the ground where the apple arch walk will go, in the corner of the orchard. I think we've hit a terracing wall, as I seemed to be digging out a pile of stones. It's gone reasonably, though: I think another couple of days clearing/levelling, and a couple of days actually digging the planting trenches (which will probably need a good deal of compost or topsoil adding in).

Fence

Having dug the trench for the hedge that will go inside it, today was spent putting up the boundary fence at the edge of the orchard. We've opted for C8/80/15 stock fencing: it's a heavy-weight 'C' wire, with 10 guage (3.0mm) top and bottom wires, with the rest 12 gauge (2.6mm). There are 8 horizontal wires (not evenly spaced: the lower ones are smaller, to deter squeezing through), and it's 80cm tall, with 15cm gaps between the verticals.

We decided to put the fence posts (2.5") every 2700mm (9'), with a chunkier, 3.5" post at each end (with angled straining bar) and in the middle. Getting the posts in took until early afternoon: most of them were straightforward, with only one hitting stones. The stock fence went on in a couple of hours: a joint effort in tensioning it, and it now looks pretty tight. It now looks pretty good: we've left the boundary posts that weren't in the right places to be fence posts, but once Peter and Sara have checked they're happy, these can come out.

Bottled Apples

We made a late start to things today, as we had a team round to survey for wall insulation. That done, we donned boots, and got out to plant our spring-flowering bulbs.

• 100 mixed daffodils
• 70 mixed dwarf daffodils
• 300 Puschkinia Libanotica
• 100 Iris Reticulata 'Pixie'
• 200 mixed Chionodoxa
• 50 Narcissi Tête-à-Tête
• 25 Purple Blend Tulips
• 40 Ard Schenk crocuses
• 20 mixed hyacinths
• 200 mixed species crocuses
• 20 Camassia quamash
• 10 Fritillaria meleagris
• 12 Nectaroscordum siculum (honey garlic)
• 16 Allium aflatunese
• 24 Allium sphaerocephalon
• 50 Allium caeruleum, and
• 10 Allium 'Purple Sensation'

We haven't done all 1300 today, but made a good start. The daffodils have gone into the beds either side of the septic tank, and we enlarged the bed on the games-lawn side, making it more like the other one, and curving out into the lawn (less mowing!). The puschkinia, chionodoxa, and crocuses are for the sweet-pea/wildflower bed and the heuchera bed; the camassia, snakes-head fritillaries and honey garlic are for the copse bed; while the rest of the alliums are going at the garage end of the long bed. The irises will go at the kitchen end of the same bed, and the hyacinths and tulips are for pots.

We got as far as the light would let us, and then came in to bottle some apples. Each 2l kilner jar takes a kilo of apples, peeled, cored, and sliced. They go in the oven at 140°C for 50 minutes, then you add boiling water and seal. Very straightforward, and they will hopefully keep for a year.

York Gate

David and Ann were with us for the weekend, and having dropped them off at the station, we carried on to visit York Gate Garden, which is on the outskirts of Leeds. It's on a similar scale to our own garden, and is pleasingly divided into a number of smaller gardens, which is the kind of approach we're trying to take. It had a pretty pond, a nut walk, and a productive kitchen garden.

York Gate Gardens (© Ian 2013)

And, inevitably, a small nursery. We picked up three alpine Lady's Mantles  (Alchemilla conjuncta), which is more delicate than A. mollis, with leaves that are more divided, and silver edged. It is, apparently, less prone to seeding everywhere, and is better behaved.

Having got home, we pottered in the garden, including a contemplative look at the games lawn: Liz is floating the possibility of cutting an oval flower bed in its centre, and making the surrounding beds that bit bigger. Doing so would prevent badminton (but the combination of warm, dry and still weather necessary for a reasonable game is extremely rare), and formal croquet; but modified croquet, boules, lawn darts, and similar would all be possible. And it would make more space for plants, and probably look more attractive.

I also hooked up some new watering equipment, which arrived last week: a timer computer, which can set water going up to eight times each day, and an automatic distributor from Gardena. The latter's rather clever: each time the water comes on, it sends it out the next outlet of six, in sequence. By connecting each irrigation zone to a different outlet, and using the computer to turn the water on (and off) the same number of times, each zone will be watered. It will mean I only have to turn the water on/off once, instead of five or so times, in an evening, and the kitchen garden (and green roof) will be watered. It will also mean that the watering can be done while we're away, without laboriously inconveniencing a neighbour.

Quince Bed

A weekend of hard work has meant that we now have a new flower bed. We planted the quince in June last year, and covered as much of the rest of its future bed with plastic, weighed down with branches. There's a photo from earlier this year, in April, when we dug the bed in front of this one, for sweet peas.

Sweet pea bed, with quince bed behind (© Ian 2013)

Yesterday, we removed all the branches (replacing that pile behind the orange bag in the photo above, which has now been chipped: it's a Sisyphean task!), and lifted the plastic. It's mostly done its work: the grass under the plastic was dead and largely decomposed. We hadn't put plastic all the way up to the quince—I can't remember, now, whether we ran out of plastic, or didn't want to stop water reaching the quince.

Either way, some turf remained. The mattock head once again proved invaluable, and I cut off the turf and started digging over the bed yesterday. I got about a third of the way through, having started after chopping a load of firewood, and left the rest for today.

It took six hours of work today, while Liz weeded and tidied, but I've now dug over the whole bed, removing about five barrow-loads of stones, and a five foot metal pole (no idea what it once was).

The long border is looking greatly improved from Liz's tidying, as are the two beds along the septic tank, and the whole kitchen garden.

Having readied the bed, we then planted out most of the heucheras that we've had waiting (about eighteen of them); two of the purple stemmed sarcococca; the physocarpus ('Lady in Red'), elder ('Black Lace'), and oak-leaved hydrangea from Ludlow market; calamagrostis (C. x acutiflora 'Overdam'), deschampsia, molinia, and achillea from RHS Tatton Park; and thirteen of the stipa we grew from seed last year.

Many of these will probably be split, in a year, and/or moved around, to build up the planting in the copse beds below it, and the colour wheel above it, but for now they make a pretty range of colours.

New planting in the Quince Bed (© Ian 2013)

Plum and Cherry Pruning

Most of the fruit trees were pruned near the end of February. That was while the trees were still dormant (just as well, given the snowy Easter we had), but we left the plums and cherries alone. These (Prunus genus) are particularly susceptible to Silverleaf infection (a fungal disease, Chondrostereum purpureum), which typically gets into the plant through wounds. Routine pruning of these trees should be left, therefore, until they're in leaf. As this was a formative pruning of a young sapling, we've waited only until the trees are starting to break bud.

I worked round the relevant trees this evening: Victoria Plum, Oullin's Golden Gage, Merryweather Damson,  ornamental plums 'Spring Glow' and Pissardii, 'Royalty' crab-apple and cherry 'Royal Burgandy', as well as 'Summer Sun' cherry in the garden. There's another Victoria in the garden, but I need to decide how to treat that, as it had its leader cut out at about 50cm when we bought it (a garden ago): ideally we'd have a 1-1.4m clear stem on it, but that might be tricky.

They've all had all feathers on the bottom third cut right back, those in the middle third halved, and the top third left. A couple of the fruit trees have a leader that's about at the right height, so we can train main laterals this year.

I also had a play with a plan for the herb garden today.

Possible Herb Garden Plan (© Ian 2013)

It could still change, of course. We're currently thinking of having three interwoven boundaries: one of box, one of euonymus, and one of lavender. The 55 sections then have different things in them. Some of them (the 'step-ins') will be rather more sparsely planted, to allow us to walk through them to get access across the garden. The ornamentals are likely to be plants like gladioli; the obelisks are probably going to wind up being  edible legumes, but attractive varieties. What the herbs are is still subject of discussion: the advantage of this sort of design is that each square can have different soil (enriched, impoverished, gritty, damp) to suit the planting, so Mediterranean herbs (sharp drainage, poor soil) can grow next to roses (deep rich soil).

And as for the roses: we'll probably get four varieties, possibly using the Sister Elizabeth and Eglantine roses we have as one group, with three others: I'd like at least one white rose, and one deep red.

Time to turn some more turf!

Herbs and Mulching

Yesterday we finished making the new wildflower/cutting flower bed in front of the quince. We'd lifted the turves last weekend: the ground then needed digging over to removes stones, the damaged land-drain needed repairing, and then it was ready to sow.

We've put four bamboo obelisks in the bed, which we'll plant sweet peas up. As the bed's roughly triangular, that's demarcated three beds, into each of which we've sown a different pack of seeds. One is a pastel meadow mix (gypsophila, Bishop's flower, poppies and cosmos); one is an 'Amethyst and Sapphire' mix (anchusa, salvia, cornflower, verbena); and the last is a combination of several wildflower annual mixes.

Once that was done, we spent the rest of the afternoon starting to mark out the beds for the herb garden. We lifted enough turf to clear a space about 6m by 6m last week, which we've now marked. The garden will be a series of beds about a metre square, set at 45°. Some will have herbs, some will have roses, and we might also include some with spring and summer bulbs in, and some more obelisks with climbers, to add some height.

The edging, we haven't quite decided on. We long intended to use box, mixed with lavender, but this isn't totally fixed. We might use euonymus (probably a variegated form) as an alternative. Partly this is because of the difficulty in propagating more box from the Witley clones, or the cost of purchasing the 500-odd plants we'll need.

Nonetheless, the pattern's more or less decided, subject to tweaks as we uncover more soil, and can lay out the grid, and work out where and how the boundaries fall.

Herb garden outline ( Ian 2013)

Then, today, we've weeded all the fruit beds, and put down a triple mulch: a layer of compost, covered by a layer of cardboard (degradable weed barrier), covered with a layer of conifer chippings. The last of these should mean that the ericaceous nature of the soil is maintained (particularly important with the blueberries), although it'll take a while to break down completely. I shall try to add grass clippings during the summer, to increase the nitrogen content, and off-set the nitrogen lock-up that the carbon-rich chippings will cause.

Hopefully, that should now mean that the weeding of the fruit beds is very easy this year, as well as ensuring that the bushes are well fed and productive.

Flower Bed

Yesterday we worked on removing the grass and thatch from the tops of the turves we cut in the herb garden, and breaking up the turned earth. It took all day, really, to get the square we're working on sorted, which is slow going.

Today's been a bit more interesting: first, I sowed the wildflower seed on the green roof of the wood shelter. It's a mix of thirty-odd perennials and annuals, which should, in the main, cope with the thin, well drained soil of the green roof. I'm hoping that, in time, it'll be awash with colour and insects.

To sow it, I first watered the roof with the hose, before we divided the seed into approximate fractions, based on the size of each section of roof, mixed the seed with sharp sand, broadcast it over, and raked over. It should take 4 to 14 days to germinate.

That done, we lifted the turves on a flower bed that's planned for in front of the bed with the quince in. This year, we'll be directly sowing annuals: a mix of wildflowers and cutting flowers. We had a surprise when lifting turves: an earthenware pipe running from the spectral beds corner, down towards the kitchen garden. A few possibilities exist: it could be a land drain from that corner, which isn't working very well (it might be blocked). It could be a drain from the track or hillside. It isn't a sewage pipe (fortunately).

If it's a broken land drain from the corner, that could be beneficial: if we can repair the pipe, it might solve the drainage issues in that corner without further work. If it's from the hillside, repairing it might lead to flooding in the garden as the hill drains. We need to track the pipe up into the corner, to work out what it is, and where it comes from, as we certainly can't start digging in earnest before we know what lies beneath the soil.

However, the bed we were working on is now clear, and we've made a start on breaking up the soil.

New flower bed (© Ian 2013)

First Cut

This evening, in the last of the light, I managed to cut the lawn. Just the games lawn, and round the pond, that is. On the horizon, now, is the time when that will be almost all the grass there is that needs regular cutting: the top lawn has already started its transition to herb and rose garden; the spectrum garden, once the beds and patio are taken out, has only paths to mow; the copse has started to take shape, and that only leaves a small bit at the bottom of the access ramp, and the aforementioned games lawn and pond garden.

Last year was not a good one for lawn mowing. The last cut of the year, at the start of September, was long over due, but there hadn't been any chance to mow for nearly two months. That's 224 days ago, for those of us keeping track, which does, admittedly mean that I've had three fifths of a year off from this far-from-favourite job.

The lawn wasn't actually in bad shape. It's marginally earlier (a week) than I managed the first cut last year, 24th April, and a bit later than 2011 (20th March). Meticulous record keeping belies the fact that I'm an awful groundsman, but having that much less to mow might mean I get better at fitting it in. Tonight's work only took about 85 minutes, which is entirely manageable in an evening. Before we started reducing the lawns, it was a three hour job—and not a pleasant one. The cold winter has meant that the grass hasn't grown particularly, so this trim only yielded a (pretty full, I concede) barrow of clippings—the first trim of 2012 left me with a compost bay full.

Inevitably, the lawn will look a little yellow tomorrow, and we've had a number of mole-hills in the last month, so it won't look fantastic. I've long promised myself that when I only have a 'small' lawn to maintain, I'll do things like rolling, levelling, feeding, and striping. I might not be far off, which means I might need to start thinking about renovating that petrol cylinder mower that's languishing in the garage.

The spring bulbs are doing really nicely. There's a very eye-catching crocus that's come up in the copse, called 'Ard Schenk': white, and multi-headed. There are also some unexpectedly attractive chionodoxa: they came as part of a pack, and we'd kind of forgotten we'd planted them. The other blue chionodoxa under the berberis at the far end of the top bank (near the oil tank) are also looking pretty. They only emerged when we removed the overgrown shrubs from the top bank, and have been a delight for the last couple of springs.

Chionodoxa (© Ian 2013)

Mud

We've been spending almost all of the last seven days digging. The hillside, we discovered, is far wetter than expected, and needs serious drainage in order to be sure that our fruit trees will thrive. With some interruptions (a visit to my parents' on Monday; snow on Wednesday; things like that), we've been working on digging the necessary drainage trenches, and the planting pits for the trees.

Needless to say, this has been non-trivial. We're almost there, now, and just have another half-dozen pits (and whatever trenches are required for them!) to go.

It's been a muddy, hard, squelching job, and I shall be very glad when it's done. At the moment, the hillside doesn't look like much, with bamboo canes marking the future position of trees, and then only muddy ditches, wet spoil heaps, and muddy tracks where the grass has broken down under foot.

Orchard Plan

It's been a long and tiring weekend, really, but we've cleared about 50m² of gorse from the hillside, marked out where the 47 trees will go, and cleared and put down squares of weed-suppression on the spaces for about 17 of them.

The gorse patch from the kitchen gate (© Ian 2013)

The gorse patch from the drive (© Ian 2013)

Clearing the gorse was a matter of loppers (and secuteurs) and good gloves. Liz cleared a lot of brambles (horribly twisted and knotted in the gorse), while I concentrated on gorse. The gorse (unhindered by bramble) was rather quicker, and our respective speed showed. The gorse hid an enormous rabbit warren city, which they will now, no doubt, extend up the hill to better cover.

This, no doubt, explained the cats' interest in what we were doing: they spent most of Saturday supervising us.

Eventually, the gorse and brambles were cut, and today we turned to putting out bamboo canes to represent the trees we have planned.

 After clearing the gorse patch, and putting out the bamboos (© Ian 2013)

Roughly half (25) are for Scot's pines; the other 22 are ornamental or fruit trees. We had a bit of time left, so I got Sigrid out, and cleared patches around the first couple of dozen. Once we'd picked up the debris, we had time before the light failed to place 1m squares of weed suppressant membrane around the canes, and weight them down.

Sigrid worked really well, with the tri-blade attached, mowing through the undergrowth. There's a trick to keeping her clear of the long bramble lengths, and obviously the detritus needs clearing afterwards, but that's fine.

Canes marking future sites for the trees (© Ian 2013)

We finished the weekend by sowing sweet pea seeds: we're trying out a lot of varieties this year (14) in different colours, to work out which ones we think will work well in the corner's colour-wheel beds.

Confirmation

Reading these entries, one might realise that I've been buying a lot of trees recently. A pair of walnuts, and twenty-five Scot's pines: and a large order of other trees that won't arrive until next month (more on that later).

And this without making clear where they're all  going to fit, given that although the garden is large, two dozen pines do take up a fair bit of space.

I haven't wanted to commit this to paper, as it were, until it was all finalized, which, pleasingly, it was, last night, with a Land Registry confirmation of title. A couple of months ago, our long-resident neighbour, Bob, put his house on the market. We'd known it was coming, as he'd mentioned planning to move in January, and had been waiting to find his next house before putting the Barn on the market. Since moving here, we've had in mind that we'd like to own the land in front of the house, as it's underutilized (it's scrubby moorland, really, with some trees), and very prominent from the front windows.

Fortunately, Bob was amenable to a sale, and so in mid-September, we purchased half of the field (the half directly outside the house), with Peter and Sara purchasing the other half (directly behind them). Each half is about 1.4 acres: ours is roughly equally split between very rough grazing, trees with some clearings, and gorse and heather with a few holly trees. When I say 'rough', I really mean it. It's boggy, tussocky, and full of patches of poor grass, brambles, quick and black thorn, and gorse. With a lot of love, I hope to turn it into an orchard, probably with orvine lawnmowers.

The trees, once the clearings are reclaimed from the bracken, should be lovely to visit, and we intend to add a few trees to the mix: sweet chestnuts and willow, for example, which have a lot of utility value. The top patch is much too steep for most uses, but I hope one day to erect a few beehives, and collect honey from the heather and gorse.

The view from the top is splendid, and I'll take a photo when I can.

So: plenty of space for all those trees, as well as, hopefully, a greenhouse and a summerhouse hidden in the trees. The woodland clearings are ideal for turning into little sanctuaries, and with some spring bulbs and dogwood will be lovely in the early part of the year. A proper orchard, with plenty of fruit trees, will get us that bit closer to keeping ourselves self-sufficient in fruit.

Now we just need to clear the weeds, and start to make the land properly usable again.

Christmas Trees

We spent most of yesterday getting some plants into the new bed in front of the copse. To start with, we've put the two dogwoods we already had (Cornus alba 'Elegantissima' and 'Spaethii') near the bottom apex of the bed (near the fruit cages); three new witch-hazels (Hamamelis x intermedia 'Jelena'  and 'Magic Fire, and H. mollis) went further up, on the copse side, and we moved the weigela (W. florida 'Variegata') and the caryopteris (C. x clandonensis 'Worcester Gold') in as well. A group of heathers (white darleyensis: 'Silberschmelze', I think), and two groups of hellebores also found homes.

Then we went to town with bulbs. 180 daffodills (a mix, including jonquillas and narcissi, 'Golden Ducat', 'Pacific Coast', 'White Lion' and 'Minnow'), 100 chionodoxa, and 100 crocus ('Ard Schenk', 'Sieberi Firefly', 'Barr's Purple' and 'Romance').

Having done that, we weeded the bed in front of the dining room window, and planted a further fifty mixed daffodils, fifty Dutch irises, three allium 'Hair' and three A. caeruleum, and 32 of each of A. sphaerocephalon and ostrowskanium.

Today, we'd happily weeded the vegetable beds, and had a pleasing hour planting pots of tulips (loads of them, as you'd expect: 30 mixed Rembrandt; 25 mixed Kaufmanniana; 60 mixed Triumph) and lifting the gladioli (not done well this year, and small bulbs), when a delivery man dropped off twenty five Christmas trees.

Not cut, or very large: twenty-five 2 year old, bare-rooted, Scot's pines (Pinus sylvestris). We're planning on finding a spot for these, and cutting one or two down each year as our Christmas tree (this is, evidently, a longish-term plan)—but we hadn't expected them to arrive until, say, December. Or preferably January. And we didn't have anywhere to put them.

Undeterred, we immediately set to clearing the bed around the Victoria plum, to the side of the future pond. This bed we planned to create in the spring, running round three sides of the pond, and encompassing the fruit trees, and the bed alongside the septic tank. A quick debate about shape and size, and I started lifting turves. I got past the plum, as far as the spot we're planning for a bench, figured that was enough space, and started de-stoning the ground. This part of the operation probably took as long as lifting the turf, and we excavated probably two barrows of stone. Beyond the plum, I met my match, in the shape of a huge stone probably two feet long and one wide, with an unknown depth. I gave up there, and we planted the pines on the other side of the plum. They'll over-winter there, and we'll aim to find permanent sites for them while they're still dormant, and get them there by March.

Ducks

For her birthday, Jenny asked for two pairs of call ducks, which we, Katie, and the fosterlings dutifully obtained. One pair is (I think) 'dark blue silver', and the others are white. They arrived last week, and had been settling in nicely.

This morning, we were getting on with clearing one of the beds in front of the copse, when shouting and hollering from Jenny and Philip's direction suggested a problem. Fearing that one of the cats (both were out, and only one was supervising us) had 'discovered' the ducks, we went round. Instead, the dog had got out, and caught the white drake, Ninada. Unfortunately, he seems to have suffered serious internal injury, and died en route to the vet. I buried him in the copse this afternoon.

In brighter news, the big bed (which already had three fruit trees in it) is now complete, in a sense. The turf has all be cut and lifted (and stacked to rot down), and the heap of chippings that's been there since June has been spread out. It looks suspiciously like a flower bed. We'll start to put more plants in over the next couple of days.