Tag Archives: garden tidy

Feb
21
2011

Leaf Mountain

Posted on February 21, 2011 | Leave a comment
The newly confined leaf heap

The newly confined leaf heap

I’ve temporarily moved my hurdles that keep critters off my raised beds and used them to corral my ever-growing pile of leaves. Over the years I’ve found that if I don’t do this, the heap sprawls into the surrounding area and I don’t get a decent depth of leafmould to excavate. Wire netting inevitably starts to bend and break, so these hurdles should be a good alternative. By the time I need to use the hurdles in the vegetable garden the leaves will have settled and I can restack them into a more compact pile.

→ Leave a comment

Feb
17
2011

Starting the Big Tidy Up

Posted on February 17, 2011 | 1 Comment
This rather bare patch of ground represents a day's work. I've removed most of the autumn leaves and uprooted the over enthusiastic wild strawberries

This rather bare patch of ground represents a day's work. I've removed most of the autumn leaves and uprooted the over enthusiastic wild strawberries

I could stand it no longer!  Everything in the garden looked SUCH A MESS that I decided I had to make a start on some tidying and take the risk of more cold weather.  I began with the woodland area beneath the tulip tree where the matted mass of leaves was concealing cyclamen, snowdrops, lots of self-sown tulipa sylvestris (hooray!) and hellebores.  It was an area that had been overrun with wild strawberries that were threatening to choke out everything else, so  they have been severely reduced and I’m sure the whole area will look much better for this, especially when I have added a mulch of bark in a couple of weeks.

Tidying up revealed large clusters of Tulipa sylvestris leaves - flowers will follow later this month

Tidying up revealed large clusters of Tulipa sylvestris leaves - flowers will follow later this month

→ 1 Comment

Jan
07
2011

Wet, Wet, Wet

Posted on January 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

No sooner had the snow departed than the rain arrived.  There was a brief respite on New Year’s Day when I was able to do more than scurry outside and survey the soggy, sagging mess that is my garden.  The good news is that once I started tidying the potager I was relieved to discover that beneath all the mess things are in pretty good shape. So, just several weeks hard work and everything should be tickety-boo!

Stop Press – the sun’s just come out.

→ Leave a comment

Mar
16
2010

Chaos Reigns, but thanks to Kevin, Order is Restored.

Posted on March 16, 2010 | 1 Comment

Thank goodness I had arranged a day’s help in the garden from Kevin, an amiable Scouser, who I can call on when heavy work needs doing.  Last week’s log delivery was still sitting on the path, admittedly looking remarkably like an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture, but nonetheless, in urgent need of transport to the log store. He had nearly finished and was looking forward to a little light horticulture, when a delivery of a tonne bag of organic multipurpose compost arrived  on a lorry without a crane.  The only place it could go was on the driveway in front of the car – which was needed first thing the next morning. So I gathered up every bag I could find and Kevin shovelled and between the two of us we managed to empty the bulk bag sufficiently to heave it out of the way and liberate the car.  Remarkably, Kevin was back the next day to move all the potting compost to its final destination. What a trouper!

→ 1 Comment