hedge cutters – Page 2 – Gardening within LiMitS

Maintenance!

There has been a bit of hard work today! Given a 430 wake up from our intrepid scout who was brought inside by the smell of a dead rat… found by the side of a shed (we have a few, take your pick!) she had managed a good few hours of sleep! My bags, however, are deepest purple today!

The grass has been cut, brambles and spiky things excised, and several discussions about shed renovations and purchases and repositioning have been had.

White cosmos- think courgettes will be exchanged with next door!

It’s thirsty work all this gardening and friends exchanging photos from the socially distanced pub make me want to find said secluded spot. But the media has been full of bad behaviour which makes me less inclined to think it a good idea.

I’m still finding my happy medium however as yesterday’s family reunion took it out of me, as it became a longer day than anticipated and then we had the scout overnighter going on simultaneously by zoom.

Hence my editing of areas of the garden needing weeding- a job for another day…

So my penance…

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For cutting off the electricity my penance was weeding. Smallest helped but got to use my hedge gadget! I am not sure I will learn how to use that this year? But we/I pulled up lots of mares tail and pulled out dead valerian. That also appeals to miss helper? Hard to miss and not the prettiest when it is dying.

And the mares tail is everywhere… this may be the worst mistake of our house purchase. To not know the weeeds… Five years in and we haven’t really made a visible mark on the garden but my intention to be working and the reality are different. I am lucky to be working, don’t get me wrong, but zero hours don’t contractually make you well off. I will do as much as I can over the next month and see whether I can ‘magic’ something into my life that I had to put on hold, due to Covid restrictions like everyone in the world.

Thursday is our garden collection day and the grass cuttings are rather pungent. But adding a load of other weeds today made the front garden a little tidier. Little one didn’t get up to the top of the hedge but thoroughly enjoyed using my new hedge gadget and my new tipper cart. I have to do a little more digging and soil shifting to lay out the slabs I want, and we have to order a tonne of sand and some lime cement to lay the slabs properly. I am not a big strong builder and neither are the rest of the family, so we may be a while getting the slabs laid. Oh well…

The hedge is a bit taller than my youngest…

What’s in our hedge?

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Cutting through the layers of the front hedge, there are peculiar discoveries. What has been planted and what is something that has seeded? There are spiky spindly ones and boy there are multiple fronds of mares tail.

A few Rowans (not Romans auto correct!) have seeded themselves and as our road section has a lot of rowans as part of the garden city plan, that’ll be the reason. If I had known how lovely the roads with cherries look, maybe we’d be living on one of those instead! Things you learn in living in a place…

This is certainly easier to trim with my new gadget, which could have been a birthday present if I’d waited, but I tend to be impulsive like that? I didn’t think it would arrive overnight either? Post and courier delivery is happening quickly again. You just have to pick the right things. Possibly the larger distributors are reacting to the shortage of couriers fastest?

This one has pretty little flowers. I must look it up?

I will keep posting my garden musings as long as there is something I am discovering – like my oldest suggested the front grass needs watered. Hmm another job for the to-do-list!

Charged and raring to GO!

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That hand-held hedge trimmer got my oldest into the front and onto the front strip to help me with the hedge! Result! Came ever so quick too! Must hunt for a wheelbarrow in similar ways…

These have bloomed again! And my slab area is cleared… so sand is required.

I finished cutting turf where the slabs are to go so I need sand and lime to put down. But the area is far from flat… not buying a roller! And we have soil mountains between the horse chestnut and sycamore. I nearly deadheaded the stripy rose chucking those about. The garden is being reshaped as I write, and whoever inherits it from us is also going to take a journey. (Not that I am in any hurry to shuffle off this earth place.

I am too busy shouting on social media for that. Government suddenly announced dentists can open – to the shock of said dentists – with only a matter of days notice. Seriously? Maybe my oldest can get her brace fixed… we can pick up some cakes today to celebrate! I know!