A fuller guide to digging holes in the ground...
Monday, April 23rd, 2012 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanOver the weekend we dug ourselves another flower bed so that we can train climbers up the vast expanse of wooden fence at the bottom right hand side of the garden. We also took the step of digging up what used to be the lawn, before inattention allowed it to return to tussocks before evolving into savannah.
To say that we are weedy is an understatement (that’s us, rather than the garden). In my case, thirty-odd years of working in an office have done nothing to prepare me for digging up grass and raking out huge clumps of grass root material, or pulling out long pieces of what may well be cherry tree root, judging by the saplings that were growing from it. It’s too far down the garden to be roots from our cherry tree, but there is a likely suspect the other side of the fence (which, sadly, I think may have a death sentence on it if the Evil Property Developer –q.v.westernind LJs passim - actually starts work on the bungalow that he’s finally got planning permission for).
The plan is to cover that fence in climbers that will, in the fullness of time, bush out, over and above the fence, both beautifying it and closing out views of the anticipated development and keeping our little corner of England relatively private. Not that we get up to anything untoward, you understand, we just don’t want whoever eventually moves into that property witnessing us not getting up to anything.
In addition to the new bed along that fence, the purpose of clearing the quondam lawn was to flatten it and sew meadow seeds, which we have now done. I hope we haven’t overdone the seeding, but by the end of the summer there should be meadow grass, field poppies, buttercups, cornflowers and things growing nicely down there. Apparently it will take until the end of next summer before it properly comes into its own, but I can wait. It should provide a nice, if compact, wildlife habitat. We are hoping to entice in bees and butterflies and things. Maybe a hedgehog. Field mice and voles etc are welcome provided they stay there and don’t come in the house (though I suspect the burgeoning local cat community may have something to say about such populations other than the insects and hedgehogs), but we are hoping for more wild birds, too.
As I noted in LJ a day or so ago, we have a couple of bolshy robins following our gardening intently in the hunt for all-you-can-eat wormage. This pair isn’t nesting in our garden, but I think they may be doing so next door, or certainly very nearby. We are also playing host to blue and great tits, though the magpies do muscle in on them from time to time. It would be nice to attract sparrows, too. Who would have thought 20 years ago that it would be so hard to find the little blighters?
Finally for this entry, I saw the male fox at the weekend for the first time in many months. He and his mate have been around, judging by the odd bits of digging and the occasional deposit, but they have been rather less brazen about it in recent times. Second hand reports on the state of affairs injfs’s garden (which is slightly offset to the rear of ours), suggest that Mr and Mrs Johnny Renard have been raising a family, which would account, I guess, for their circumspection.
To say that we are weedy is an understatement (that’s us, rather than the garden). In my case, thirty-odd years of working in an office have done nothing to prepare me for digging up grass and raking out huge clumps of grass root material, or pulling out long pieces of what may well be cherry tree root, judging by the saplings that were growing from it. It’s too far down the garden to be roots from our cherry tree, but there is a likely suspect the other side of the fence (which, sadly, I think may have a death sentence on it if the Evil Property Developer –q.v.
westernind LJs passim - actually starts work on the bungalow that he’s finally got planning permission for).The plan is to cover that fence in climbers that will, in the fullness of time, bush out, over and above the fence, both beautifying it and closing out views of the anticipated development and keeping our little corner of England relatively private. Not that we get up to anything untoward, you understand, we just don’t want whoever eventually moves into that property witnessing us not getting up to anything.
In addition to the new bed along that fence, the purpose of clearing the quondam lawn was to flatten it and sew meadow seeds, which we have now done. I hope we haven’t overdone the seeding, but by the end of the summer there should be meadow grass, field poppies, buttercups, cornflowers and things growing nicely down there. Apparently it will take until the end of next summer before it properly comes into its own, but I can wait. It should provide a nice, if compact, wildlife habitat. We are hoping to entice in bees and butterflies and things. Maybe a hedgehog. Field mice and voles etc are welcome provided they stay there and don’t come in the house (though I suspect the burgeoning local cat community may have something to say about such populations other than the insects and hedgehogs), but we are hoping for more wild birds, too.
As I noted in LJ a day or so ago, we have a couple of bolshy robins following our gardening intently in the hunt for all-you-can-eat wormage. This pair isn’t nesting in our garden, but I think they may be doing so next door, or certainly very nearby. We are also playing host to blue and great tits, though the magpies do muscle in on them from time to time. It would be nice to attract sparrows, too. Who would have thought 20 years ago that it would be so hard to find the little blighters?
Finally for this entry, I saw the male fox at the weekend for the first time in many months. He and his mate have been around, judging by the odd bits of digging and the occasional deposit, but they have been rather less brazen about it in recent times. Second hand reports on the state of affairs in
jfs’s garden (which is slightly offset to the rear of ours), suggest that Mr and Mrs Johnny Renard have been raising a family, which would account, I guess, for their circumspection.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-23 11:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-23 11:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-23 11:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-23 01:03 pm (UTC)On this matter:
In addition to the new bed along that fence, the purpose of clearing the quondam lawn was to flatten it and sew meadow seeds, which we have now done. I hope we haven’t overdone the seeding, but by the end of the summer there should be meadow grass, field poppies, buttercups, cornflowers and things growing nicely down there. Apparently it will take until the end of next summer before it properly comes into its own, but I can wait. It should provide a nice, if compact, wildlife habitat. We are hoping to entice in bees and butterflies and things. Maybe a hedgehog. Field mice and voles etc are welcome provided they stay there and don’t come in the house (though I suspect the burgeoning local cat community may have something to say about such populations other than the insects and hedgehogs), but we are hoping for more wild birds, too.
I can help you with this if you feel you need advice, I can see what you're after but I'm not 100% sure it may turn out how you want (eg you will get cornflowers and poppies this but are unlikely to get many, maybe even none next year). If you fancy it maybe you could reveal what species you have in the wild mix. Some of the commercial mixes (hell a *lot* of them) are horribly unbalanced and or contain invasive species that you may come to rue extending a welcome too. I've managed to pull off a small meadow previously so unlike almost every other time I open my mouth, I do sort of know my onions in this area.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-23 01:08 pm (UTC)We don't want to have to resort to slah and burn next year!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-23 01:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-23 01:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-23 11:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-25 09:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-26 04:31 am (UTC)