Helen's Garden Renovation Project

I think the Met Office has been doing what my colleague at work, Susie, refers to as “managing expectations”. Yesterday morning it was predicting sunshine and heavy showers, with the emphasis on the heavy showers, but actually we got just the sunshine. This morning was a bit soggy, but I couldn’t afford to miss a session, so I went out and got cold and wet, but I did make progress.

Overview of garden with two sides of new lawn marked out

I have finished breaking up the path foundations, and have started putting out the poles and string to mark out where the lawn should go, according to my plan on squared paper. The lawn is to run diagonally across the garden to try and make it look longer. It doesn’t look as if I need to dig up the apple tree yet after all, but I may still yet move the lawn boundaries. It also looks as if the yellow euonymus can stay where it is for the time being. This is all good news because I am running out of time. As you can see very clearly, the recent winds have been very unkind to next door’s fence, and I was worried that the fence might fall on the apple tree and squash it. I stuck a brown piece of wood from the raspberry frame in the ground between the apple tree and the fence in the hope that it would take the brunt of any collision, but now that one panel has almost parted company with the post, the wind can get through the gap and I am hoping there will be no further damage.

Marking out large areas with poles and string is no joke, partly because my string is quite feeble – thin and stretchy – and my poles are about 15 years old and sometimes break into several pieces when I try to stuff them in the ground. On the picture I have drawn a line in pale grey to show where the string is because you wouldn’t be able to see the original string very well at the resolution I am using. I have been using a large metal right-angled triangle with 45 degree angles to position the string but even so I don’t think I have been very accurate. However, I have probably been accurate enough to work out what I want to do. I haven’t marked off the far long edge of the lawn because there were too many things in the way, like compost bags and sections of path foundations. I now know that I can move a lot of stuff to the area to the right of and in front of the big conifer in the corner because no building work will need to be carried out there. The “stuff” consists of sections of path foundation, and the plants in containers. I need to get as many plants off the patio as possible because there will be some cutting work carried out there. So I will level out the ground near the conifer, put the path foundations on the ground, and then put the plants on the path foundations. It looks as if I should be able to have the lawn completely flat, which I think will look better than a sloping lawn, and then have some rocks and nice rooty plants to support a rise in ground height right at the end of the garden.

And now I can spend the rest of the day being warm and dry, and do some armchair gardening, which involves thinking about which plants I would like to have at the left-hand side of the garden.

We have had very heavy rain recently, and this has slightly held up progress. The garden is very muddy, despite my well-drained sandy soil. I have missed a few sessions because the rain was too torrential. However, this morning a little light rain was quite welcome for cooling purposes as I wielded the pickaxe yet again.

The path foundations, mostly broken up into small pieces

Progress was quite slow at first, but now I have worked out a good technique. The thing to do is to gently bash a groove across the path where I want it to break. When this has been established, give it a few good whacks in various places along the groove until a crack appears. At this point, even if the crack is very narrow, it is possible to lever up the lump of concrete and it will snap off at the groove. Even so, I can’t do too much in one session because I get tired and then there is the risk of injury either to myself or to bits of the garden that I don’t want bashed up. The concrete is heavy too. I can just about carry the sections shown in my photograph, but I find it’s better to roll them end over end across the long-suffering lawn so that my back lasts as long as possible. This is very calorie-intensive work, so it is important to keep replenishing the fuel supplies by eating lots of cake.

I am aware that time is moving on fast. If I really am going to get these works carried out in January, I need to do even more. In time-honoured fashion, here is another one of my lists of things I probably won’t manage to do.

(1) Finish removing foundations of path to the right of where the raspberry frame was.
(2) Map out with poles and string where the pond and lawn will go.
(3) Look at poles and string and dither a bit while trying to decide whether this is what I really want. Move poles and string about and probably go back to original configuration.
(4) Dig up euonymus (the yellow stuff to the right of the black plastic in the overview picture below) and apple tree (at the left of the overview picture, still with leaves on) if they are in the way.
(5) Remove any other paths that are in the way.
(6) Decide which materials to use to build pond (see Kebur at http://www.kebur.co.uk/).
(7) Get quotes from work.

Garden overview

We have been very lucky with the weather so far, and I have now finished demolishing the raspberry frame. I sawed the posts into three sections and took them over to the right hand side of the garden. I also moved the footings to join the rest of the rubble next to the temporary pond. I have started taking up the foundations of the path to the right of the raspberry frame but this is quite hard work. I will have to break it into sections by creating a score line with my pickaxe and then levering it up so that it breaks along the score line. The foundations are quite hard so this will not be a fast process.

The raspberry frame is no more

I am now working on a more accurate version of the plan for the diagonal lawn and pond. I want to lawn to run at exactly 45 degrees to the house, so I have worked out some exact coordinates and plotted them on a spreadsheet, which allows me to create a new scale drawing. The next thing I need to do is to mark out where the lawn will go with poles and string, and spend a long time looking at it to see if I like it. I also need to do this to find out whether I have to remove any more plants or hard landscaping. I may need to dig up the euonymus at the end of the garden, and even one of the apple trees (the furthest one from the house).

The forecast for the next few days is rain, severe gales, and more rain. So the garden will just have to wait until we get some drier weather.

I am sad to report that in this year’s sample of eight very badly taken pelargonium cuttings, two didn’t make it, and this may turn into three failures. Fortunately we have still not had a frost, so I took some more cuttings, still very badly.

There are now less than two months to go before I must get quotations for the pond building and lawn edge laying. Unlike last year, I have been very busy with tuition, and haven’t had much time for the garden. I am still in the process of demolishing the raspberry frame. This job is going well.

The demolition of the raspberry frame. Only two posts out of six are still standing.

I have dug up four of the posts, and they were all very easy to remove. I have sawn the posts into approximately two-foot (60 cm) lengths so that I can dispose of the wood later. I tried to bash the concrete footings with a pickaxe, but haven’t made much headway. I was hoping that the concrete wouldn’t be very good and would break up easily, but no such luck. I have to hand it to my dad – he is an expert concrete maker. I think the fact that he made my mum wash all the rubble before we put it in the holes helped the bonding too. Fortunately the concrete-clad sawn-off posts are not too heavy to lift. I will use the sack trolley to transport them to the other side of the garden, out of the way, and perhaps they can be used for rubble when building the pond.

I have been encountering a new threat to the garden development project – foxes. They are moving my ground covering sheets and digging holes. However, there is a distinct reduction in cat mess, so maybe they are keeping the cats away. The foxes could be a big problem because of their ability to dig fairly large holes. I don’t want my new shrubs dug up and I don’t want craters in my lawn. On the other hand, if I could somehow persuade them to dig in certain areas only, they could help create the new pond.

I have finished the staining of the wooden shelving in the greenhouse and have screwed the shelves back in place. It was very difficult to get them back in. I had taken the precaution of photographing the shelves in their original positions so I knew which shelf went where (by comparing the positions of the knots in the wood), but it still required considerable brute force to push them into place. I tried to put the screws back into their original holes but this was difficult too. This is what the end result looks like, and I think it was probably worth it.

The greenhouse staging, stained in Sadolin teak woodstain

It is definitely autumn now, and that means loads of mushrooms. The following specimen is growing in abundance in one of our communal landscaped areas.

Fungus growing in communal area under lime tree

I am hoping that it is not honey fungus. I looked up honey fungus on the Internet and it is supposed to be apparent under the bark of the tree, which it isn’t. So maybe it is just some pretty brown stuff.

My tomatoes are still going happily and not suffering from blight, thanks to my copper fungicide. I am also pleased to report that my blackberry, which flowered wrongly last month, is now wrongly sporting a cluster of green fruits.

Unblighted tomato plant

Now that I have finished staining the staging, I can do some fun stuff, like demolishing the raspberry frame. This edifice was put up in June 1996 by a working party led by my dad. Since he had to mix the concrete by hand, we were economical with it, and dug nice neat holes with plenty of rubble in them. As a result, I found that after digging to a depth of about six inches around one of the posts, I could easily push it over. Indeed, a six-foot man could probably push the posts over without needing to dig any of the soil out first. However, this is not a disparaging comment on its construction (my parents never read this blog, but someone else might read it and tell them), since the frame has stood firm in many bouts of strong winds for more than thirteen years. I am just glad that this is going to be an easy job.

The remains of the raspberry frame after the start of demolition

The weather for September has been very dry, and I have taken advantage of it as much as the demands of work have allowed me. The main job has been to stain the greenhouse staging. It has had two coats of wood preserver and three coats of Sadolin Classic on each side, and it will get two coats of Sadolin extra to finish. This may seem a bit over the top, but I wanted a good deep colour and I know that it will be a good many years before I unscrew the staging and stain it again. Two of the shelves have to be stained in the greenhouse because they have power points attached to them, and when it rains, everything inside the greenhouse gets wet. I have not yet worked out why this is – if I stand in the greenhouse when it’s raining, I don’t get any drips landing on my head. It is a good thing I have invested in special outdoor versions of the power points and light switch. It is also a good thing that September has been mainly dry.

Here are two pictures of the garden as it is today:

Right hand corner of the garden taken from an upstairs window

Left hand corner of the garden taken from an upstairs window

You can see that I have moved the compost bins out of the way to the right hand side of the garden, which will not have any work done on it just yet. I have also taken up the surface of the path next to the raspberry frame. I need to remove the side of the raspberry frame furthest from the fence (the other side can stay for now) and take up the path foundations. I also need to start measuring up and put some markers down to show where the pond and new lawn are going to go. I have just over two months before I intend to get quotes for the work.

The cats are learning. Unfortunately they are not only learning to run like blazes as soon as they see me, but to scrape back the plastic coverings to reveal new toilet opportunities. I think I will have to abandon my makeshift attempts to cover the ground with assorted bits and pieces, and just buy some enormous great sheets of polythene from B&Q or Wickes.

We have been very lucky with the weather in September. Today I finished moving the compost from my Dalek-type bins to my square bins next to the greenhouse. The first compost bin I emptied was the middle one in terms of how long the compost had been in there. I didn’t find any larvae in it. The second bin that I emptied was the most recent to be filled, and it was full of larvae. The third bin that I emptied was the first to be filled, so had some lovely crumbly compost in it, and that was full of larvae too. I have come to the conclusion that the reason I didn’t find any larvae in the first bin I emptied was that the eggs hadn’t hatched then, or hadn’t been laid.

(Update: when I first wrote this post, I thought the larvae were vine weevil larvae. I now think they are cockchafer larvae (previously illustrated in April 2009), as they have small brown legs, and vine weevil larvae haven’t got any legs. Also I think they are a lot smaller).

Whatever sort of larvae they are, here is a set of six for you to look upon with revulsion:

Larvae found in compost heap

I would take a picture of my progress, except that it doesn’t look much different from before because I haven’t moved the empty round compost bins yet. They are useful to cover the earth as a cat deterrent.

The next job is to stain the greenhouse staging, now that the wood preservative I applied must have dried by now. I would much rather break up the path, but the weather is right for staining (not too hot, not too cold) and I had better get on with it.

I can’t remember an autumn that involved quite as many beech nuts in my garden as this one. Perhaps I am noticing them more because quite a lot of them land on my greenhouse roof, but I am sure I have never had quite this many on my lawn before. The nuts come from the beech tree next door. They are being very inefficiently eaten by pigeons. Possibly squirrels are having a go too, but I haven’t seen any so far.

This is a good time for Renovation because (1) I am working fewer hours at Health Promotion because it’s term-time (2) I have some pupils, but the numbers haven’t built up yet to frantic levels (3) the temperature is ideal for heavy work.

I have now moved the contents of two out of my three round compost bins. The first bin was the first one that I filled, so the compost was quite well done. I sieved it and used anything that went through the sieve for repotting members of my Portable Herbaceous Border. I put the lumps in one of my square compost bins by the greenhouse. The second bin was the last one to be filled, so most of the compost wasn’t done yet. It had a lot of waterlily in it from when I emptied the old pond. It also had about ten nasty little vine weevil grubs in it. Since the birds are so busy eating the beech nuts, I decided not to leave the grubs out on the path in the hope that something will eat them. I mean, would you eat vine weevil larvae if there were a zillion beech nuts all over the place to eat instead? So I chopped them in two with my trowel instead. I didn’t find any vine weevil grubs in the first compost bin. Maybe they preferred the sliminess of the not-yet-very-rotted compost.

I need to get some pyracantha with lots of health and safety warnings to plant near my square compost bins to deter burglars. It’s so easy to jump on a bin and get over the fence, and I don’t want anyone doing that. If I can get a variety that is willing to be trained on top of the fence it will deter cats too.

The Sungold tomatoes are still producing, at the rate of one or two tomatoes per plant every day. They have not got blight yet. I love copper fungicide (but I always wash it off before eating the tomatoes).

I am taking this week off work and once again I chose the right week! Well, it has been a little drizzly sometimes, but generally the weather has been ideal, and it looks good for the next few days too.

It is now cool enough to attempt to stain the staging of the greenhouse. I really wish I had done this before the greenhouse was installed, but I didn’t think of it. The staging is pretty awful. The wood is very poor quality and the edges have been rough sawn and are very splintery. I started sanding the five pieces of the staging, having first unscrewed them from the supports, and although I can’t say they are nice, they are a lot better than they were before. I have swept the floor of the greenhouse and dusted off the cobwebs with a soft brush, and tomorrow I will clean the staging with methylated spirit and then it will be time to apply some wood preservative before staining it.

I am continuing to monitor my plants for signs of confusion and incompetence. This blackberry ‘Black Satin’ seems to think now is a good time to do a flower.

Could this be a winter fruiting blackberry?

It’s in a pot, so I wonder whether if I put it in the greenhouse I would get blackberries in November.

Also worth a look is my little purple violet, which thinks it’s spring.

Lovely violet, wrong time of year

My sedums and London Pride are putting on a good display. They are neighbours in my border because the proper name for London Pride is Saxifraga x urbium, and therefore they both begin with S.

Sedum flowering correctly. Not sure about the London Pride.

Apart from the greenhouse staining, my most urgent job is to split up and repot some of my perennials, especially the Waldsteinia. In fact, I may plant some of the Waldsteinia in a little strip by the fence. I’m also thinking of putting some ground cover among the thuja at the end of the garden, to deter the cats. As well as that, I am continuing to move the compost from the bins on the left to the bins on the right. This will be several hours’ further work, but there’s no urgency for that. Indeed, since it’s quite heavy work, it’s best to do it when the weather gets cooler.

I think it is the end of summer because I have now set my central heating to come on in the evenings. The end of summer is in some ways bad because it means the first frost is not long away, and it gets dark earlier, and the rain is colder… but this week I have for the first time felt that there might be some chance of getting on with some Renovation instead of purely weeding and mowing the lawn.

Some things I have done since my last entry:
(1) I sprayed the tomatoes (Sungold, my all time favourite variety) with copper fungicide because they are bound to get blighted otherwise. Now they are blue, and I have to wash the tomatoes before eating them if I don’t want to exceed my recommended copper intake, but this is a lot better than them being brown. I will spray them again tomorrow, and keep going until the first frosts. They are in pots, but I think the pots will be too heavy for me to move them into the greenhouse.

(2) I decimated the bay tree. Although I think that the bay tree is so lovely it should be as big as possible, I also realised that if I let it grow any bigger I wouldn’t be able to prune it myself safely any more, so I got on my biggest step ladder and pruned off the top bits.

The remaining nine-tenths of the bay tree after pruning

(3) I moved one of my logs from the Leylandii that I removed about a year ago and found two little baby newts, which I think must be from this year’s crop. I don’t know whether they are breeding in my temporary pond (see the foreground of the bay tree picture) or whether they are using someone else’s pond, but the main thing is that they obviously like visiting my garden.

Little baby newt sheltering under a Leylandii log

(4) I levelled the ground under the three compost bins next to the greenhouse so they can stand upright. I didn’t go as far as getting the bins all at the same height.

New compost bins

I now need to move the compost from the old bins to the new ones. I am planning to sieve the compost and dig into the ground any bits that fall through the sieve, because they’ve probably rotted enough, and move to the new compost bins the bits that don’t fall through the sieve, because they could do with being eaten by fruit flies and woodlice for a bit longer. I have pumped up the wheelbarrow tyre in preparation (suggested maximum pressure = 30 PSI. Actual pressure at time of checking = about 7 PSI).

Old compost bins. Contents to be rehomed to new compost bins.

(5) I had time to admire some of the planting we did for our residents’ communal areas in April 2008. The best section is the smallest bit just next to my house. It’s the best because it gets the most sun and also the most water, since I am the most conscientious waterer and my hosepipe won’t reach to any other areas. The purple-leaved job is a Cotinus ‘Grace’ and the big bright pink flowers are sedum spectabile ‘Brilliant’, which certainly is. The smaller-flowered plant at the front is Persicaria affine and at the back there are two Spirea ‘Goldflame’.

Border with Cotinus, Sedum, Spirea and Persicaria

All credit to my mum for thinking of the cotinus, and to Susie Bower for letting me have the cotinus and thinking of the other plants that look so good with it. (Sadly, after the picture was taken, a unknown creature stood on some of the sedums so it doesn’t look so good now).