Last day before Christmas

This week saw my last day in the garden til 2012. So to begin here is this weeks photo from the potting shed - it was still dark hence the use of the flash - don't trust the camera anymore so I thought I better get a shot in straight away

Anyway, it was back to the beech hedge again, and the removal of the cotoneaster growing uncontolled round and through it. To give you an idea of how much cotoneaster there is / was, have a look at these two pics. In the first you can see how far out from the beech the cotoneaster is growing and also you can see how thick the growth is in between the beech trunks.

The next picture shows the row of material removed - the bulk of this is cotoneaster, with some beech too - there will be a considerable amount of beech but as most of the beech growth to be removed is high up, a tractor c/w front loader and chainsaw will be required for this task

And the final picture shows the bottom (south facing side of the hedge after initial pruning (to a height of 7 - 8 ft). I have now started on the north faciung side but the growth is much less hedge like and more tree like.

So that's it for this year. Thanks to everyone who has visited the blog and to the regular followers. All that remains is to wish you all a very happy Christmas and I'll be back next year.

Beech Hedge restoration begins in earnest

No pics again but only cause there's not a lot to see at the moment. I will take some next week so you can see what I'm up to as regards bringing the beesch hedge back into some sort of order. Amazingly, we still have a few roses in bloom and through the slowly thawing snow I noticed a few pink and purple blooms on the pulmonaria in the boder against the wall.
Anyway, today started off fairly pleasant weather wise albeit a it parky. However by 3pm it was foul with strong winds and heavy snow - why did I choose gardening over an office job? It used to be that I could console myself with the thoughts of working outdoors during long hot summers but we haven't seen one of them for 4 or 5 years now.
Sally came down to the garden first thing this morning to show me what had been decided re the beech hedge and the cotoneaster growing in front of, through and behind it. Basically all the cotoneaster is to be removed other than those plants that are growing uop the middle of the beech and the beech hedge itself to be cut back quite hard to encourage fresh growth and help it bush out.
So with chainsaw, pruning saw, loppers and secateurs in the barrow, I set about it, and after a full day I have done about half. However, having removed the Cotoneaster at the front of the hedge, I think we shoud remove the cotoneaster growing up the middle too - spoke to Sally and I think we agree that this would be better.
Anyway, the burn piles are increasing and will continue to do so weekly from now til whenever we can start a fire.
That's it - like I said nothing too exciting but it will be worth the slog in the end.

White Sh*te!

And so it begins again. Winter weather is upon the garden once again and the fork and spade can more or less be put away for the winter and the chainsaw, loppers and pruning saw come into full time employment.
Anyway, here is a pic of the borders from the potting shed on Tuesday, not that there is a lot to see. On the brighter side though, you can't see any weeds !

As the camera has been playing silly buggers this last wee while, I will now show you the rasp bed - with newly planted canes as mentioned in last weeks update. The short canes are the Glen Mmoy and Glen Ample and the long canes are the Tullameen.

And the next couple of photos show some of the area that is to tackled this winter.

There is a large and very overgrown beech hedge, which will need extensive work to bring it back into order. Along the bottom side(the south facing side) of this hedge is a 3- 4ft high coteneaster hedge which might be brought back into line - or it may be removed entirely. This is not my decision to make but I should know on Tuesday next what it's fate is to be. There is also cotoneaster growing right up through the beech so it has to be removed before any real work can start on the beech itself.

I have made a start on the upper side of the beech hedge and have removed on large cotoneaster plant from the middle of the hedge already but it's a real slog - slowly slowly catchee monkey is the phrase for this hedge.

I also removed a lot of growth from a large viburnum up beside the "rose-bed" -  it's a "nothing" tree with only one saving grace - it is supporting a very old and very large climbing rose - if it wasn't doing this I would have no hesitation in removing it completely ( this may happen yet though)

So that's it for what I did on Tuesday - not the most interesting of days from a gardening point of view but the work that will be done over the coming winter will really make a difference to the garden come Spring.

That's it for this week. See ya later...........