The wet weather job

Saturday 27th Feb 10.

After consistent heavy rain all work on the open plot has stopped because it it just too wet to work on without deystroying the soil structure and making a muddy mess. Not to mention getting very wet and cold.

The wet weather job was started. One of the old glasshouses (sadly not original victorian), as you can see from the photo's it was ridge high in bramble and scrub.

Following a lot of hacking and very careful cutting to avoid breaking the glass we can actually see the wood for the trees. It looks like only 25 panes of glass are missing and the benches inside have finally died and need removing.

It is our intention to grow melons in this house once it is in a usable condition - Watch This Space

The clearing continues but as you can see the inside of the house is at least accessible.

25th February 2010

Work on the area adjacent to the west facing wall continues. Now the framework of the original Victorian garden is becoming apparent.

The apple tree than can be seen in the photo's is an original occupant of the garden and is estimated to be approx 150 years old. The box hedging runs a considerable length and is mostly intact and just requires a trim with the hedge cutter, on Derby day of course as is the tradition.

Saturday 20th Feb 2010

The start of phase 1 part 1.Despite the atrocious weather conditions (even more snow - will it ever end!), clearing work started in earnest. The area of the garden in front of the west facing wall was, until now, akin to the enchanted forest! Above head height in bramble and self-set tree seedlings, it looked an unenviable task! After a day with a machete, brush cutter and a bow saw, some of the original outlines of the garden have begun to appear.

In the foreground is the stump of the (originally) 10' high Buddleia seedling. We left it in last year for the wonderful assortment of butterflies that visited it. In hindsight, these probably originated from the same caterpillars that ate all of the brassicas..........sometimes the thought of going back to all those nasty chemicals gets very tempting.

The next big part of the clear-up, is removing a row of Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Ellwoodii'. They are some of the conifers planted by my late father over 35 years ago, part of the many varieties that he grew to sell. A friend is coming to chainsaw them down to a manageable height, then all we've got to do (!) is get the roots out. Once they have gone, it should let in an awful lot more light.