April Garden Update

Just a couple of photos to show what I have been up to during the month.
The first photo shows the main garden, which now has a border virtually the whole way round, although it is by no means finished. The grass has also been treated for moss so is looking a bit black in places. I managed to get the scarifier to work and took out a mound of dead moss and thatch. Hopefully, by the end of the summer, we should have a lawn instead of a patch of green stuff.

The second photo shows what I have done with all the turf that I have taken up and should be compared with the photo on the post from the 6th April.

The third photo has got nothing to do with the garden; it was taken on a recent walk with Annette's dogs from the top of our "mountain" and I rather like it.

Fox Alert

Today was a first for me as, at about 10:30 this morning, I got to within about ten yards of a fox in the garden. It was scrabbling about in the bushes on the left hand side of the main garden, presumably scavenging for some bread that I had put out for the birds. It soon dashed off to the bottom of the garden, over the wall and into the rough area below the field. That seems to confirm what happened to the various bits of rabbit that we have found recently, with the latest today (two legs). Recently Brandy was seen rushing around the garden with something in his mouth; when Clive caught him, he was extremely reluctant to let go of another rabbit leg; Clive subsequently found another two legs. Oh well, there are still plenty of rabbits left, so there might be some fat foxes around!

April Plans

We have decided that the grass around the base of the conifers down the side of the main garden has got to go. It takes hours to cut because it has to be done largely by hand - even the strimmer does not do a proper job without damaging the tree trunks. I have started to cut out a border as can be seen in the following photograph (bottom four small conifers), with the intention of creating an easy maintenance border which can be cut right to the edge with the big mower.

So, what to do with all the turf and associated grass and weeds? The answer came to me after I remembered seeing the faces of bunkers built from turves. The "wall" adjacent to the road leading to the house looks quite precarious in places so I thought that I would start to re-face it with whatever I took out. The following photo shows the nature of the problem (well part of it anyway) and the first few turves in place. I will never be able to do the whole wall/hedge, but it will be fun seeing if I can make it look a little better. If we ever get a patio area outside of the conservatory, that will release some more turf. I will report back as I progress.

The White Stuff

In my previous post, I hoped that the weather would improve - well this morning, the temperature in our garage was +5 and outside.....

Lonely Rabbit!

Oh well, it is now almost 10:30 and everything has returned to green.

March 2008

As far as weather is concerned, we are heartily glad to see the back of March. It did rain a lot but the main problem was the wind, which bent the conifers and uprooted one bush altogether. Fortunately no damage occurred to the house even though the roof did sound as though it going to end up in the garden at any moment! On the plus side, we did manage to clean up the upper rockery and do some planting, including some odds and ends from Redcap and South Wales. I have no doubt that some of the couch grass will return, but it will be a little easier next time, as long as I can keep it hoed regularly.

Ah well here's hoping that April is kinder!

The rabbits are multiplying rapidly giving Annette's dogs many more targets to chase.