A wander around my garden yesterday....

Ok, here are some of the problem areas....
This area is not very pleasant, and is the first bit you see when you come through the side door. The spindly tree is a young mountain ash that I want to keep. Directly to the left of is is a clump/stool of hazel, that will be cut down to ground level this winter, and not a moment too soon. It will take some doing, as is about 15-18 foot high - that's a full size dustbin there!
On the left of the picture you can see two similar stools that I did two years ago...


And here's one of them, with Harley graciously stepping in for scale.


This is the area I am currently working on. It's the top bed, along the boundary. About 8-10 foot deep, so you would think I should be able to do something there? An ornamental purple plum tree to the left - I took off all the spindly growth from the trunk yesterday.


Yet another stool of hazel (we have lots of squirrels!!) just behind the lychnis - on the other side is a very sad looking Veronica that I moved this spring. Behind and to the left of the hazel stool is a deutzia, I think. It had white flowers end May, and I cut out the flowering stems, to encourage more for next year.

It will be years before I get this area cleared. There is a 10 foot square clump of rugosa rose, that doesn't seem to do anything but prickle... It will have one last chance next year, as I will cut it down hard at the appropriate time (when is that, @wiseowl?)
To the far left of this is a scrub apple tree, that is bushy from the ground up. We don't know whether it's a pip tree, or reverting to rootstock. It did have apples last year, but then any tree that could, did, last year...


Soon nice specimen trees, but this just gives an idea of how dense everything is. Squeezed in between the shrub in front, and the conifer behind, is yet another choke berry tree! And behind everything, the 12 foot laurel hedge.

The far corner of the bed, again showing with wilderness nature (in the foreground to the left some jaunty-angled tomatoes in the veg bed)
At least two more hazels in here. Centre front (with hazel growing through the centre) is a quince. Behind is a self-sown broom. At the back is another deutzia, yet to be given its post-flower prune. The dead stems are a bit of berberis that likes to terrorise me in this corner, and between that and the conifer is a forsythia, that has had its post flower bloom.

 

...and onto the orchard area.

First, the four plum / greengage trees that we have planted.
From the left, near, Conducta. Tiny one in the middle, should be an Opal (but then the sour cherry "Rheinische Schattenmorella" - hereafter referred to as "Bob" - in the angle bed turned out to be an Opal plum. Maybe I swapped the two around on planting? Bob?)
Spindly one just behind ?Bob, a greengage Crotee, and then finally, I think an Alsemberg plum?



The first of the existing trees. Our "August" Apple, because it was covered with fruit when we first moved in, 1/8/12, and the fruit were being eaten by the end of the month. The tree is just over 6 foot tall, and as you can see, groaning again. Empty branches are at least 18" off the ground.


Here is a close up of the bad historical scarring of the trunk, that probably then got infected with apple canker. There is a second large canker-healed scar on the other side. Also, lots of suckers coming up from the base...


This is the apple tree that had bad canker earlier this year. I cut off all the infected branches and burned them, at the same time lowering the height of the tree by about 2 foot. The tree actually has good apples, mid September cropping, that store quite well. But it is very distressed this year, despite the good crop its carrying. Still the occasional flower coming...


Hard to seem but here is the open running wound on the trunk of the tree. Nearly 3 years in, and no sign of healing over. You can also see the nature of the soil here. Around the trunk, the dressing of compost that the tree gets every autumn, to the right the near-pure grey sand that is the actual soil.


Our big floppy cherry. We had some lovely cherries from it last year, about 3 kg, but the birds had them all this year. Going a bit stag-y now, at the top.



The tree I mis-identified as a pear tree, that first summer. It's actually a late cropping eating apple, now fruiting fairly reliably after a good prune (in my defence only one of the fruit trees had any, that first year!). Yet another sick tree though. You can rock the whole tree by about 5-10 degrees, so obviously sick roots down there!


The last of the existing trees (ie ones that were here when we moved in). A strange little pear tree, with a branch coming out from half way up the trunk, probably rootstock? I've left it one because
A, the first full year, it was only the small branch that had pears
B, there are no other pear trees in the area that I have seen, so possibly acting as a self-pollinating tree, this way!
Last year we had about 30-40 tasty little pears from this funny little fellow (about 8 foot tall), probably being dwarfed by the humungous oak tree behind it!

 

Thank you for your swift reply, o wise one!

Lol!! Well, some flowers would be good! We've had about 10 flowers form the whole area, each year, so knowing how useful the hips are (and I love roses, and rose hips!) is doubly frustrating.

I will be up there a-chopping later this week!!

 

And finally...


This is our Gloster 69. Ve aar making ze appels, Ja? Ve aar known as ze machine voor making ze appels, and ve aar making ze appels... (Sorry, hubby always does a really bad German accent for this tree, and yes, the trees speak, but it does have the nickname as the machine..). A good cropper?!


A rather spin.dynbraeburn, What was autocorrect doing here ?! A rather spindly Braeburn - but not bad, as only a baby



We want to get some more trees in here...



...or maybe somewhere on this bank?

 

What a great space you have there!!! The dogs must have a ball romping around your wild areas

A good selection of fruit trees too.

I have rosa rugosa I bought 3 for my previous house to put along the rear fence (bordered a park) one of each colour: white, pink and purple. One of them suckered where I didn't want it to, so I dug it out, popped it in a pot and forgot about it (along with some hebe "bits").

That pot came here with me last year and the rugosa began growing nicely together with the hebes. Now dug into the ground (two different pieces of rugosa but no idea which colour/s).

Mine didn't seem to need any maintenance and were not trimmed at all during their short life at my old house. But the hips are the size of cherry tomatoes and make a stunning Autumnal display (I had mine planted with 3 different colours of pyracantha and a passion flower).

If you can rejuvenate them, Sian, I doubt you will be disappointed

 

The dogs luurve the garden, and there are a number of areas that are human no-go, because of the hedges, thorns, etc, which is the best!all the wildlife helps too. Of course, it makes things challenging - I need to grow enough soft fruit to feed the dogs and local fox, in order for there to be anything left for us!

The fruit trees are good. I'm afraid we might be going to loose the 3 apple trees that were here when we moved in, due to tree-rock, and canker. But we have three new apple trees on order (canker resistant, and to be planted down-wind of the infected trees), oh and a damson tree to go somewhere at the top, to the right of the gates, and the medlar. Lots of holes to be dug this autumn.

I will do my best to keep the roses

 

We have been out there, cutting out some of the rugosa stems. Some of them are nearly 2" in diameter.
When the drizzle stops I will go and take some photos of the cleared area, and the stems. Then I'll need some advice, please, @wiseowl, whether to take it all down to the ground, leave some old stems a little longer, take down some of the younger shoots, etc...

We have also taken all the sucker growth out from around the apple tree, again some stems over 2" diameter, taken back the laurel, and removed the hazel plants. You can definitely see where we've been working the past hour!!

 

And the evidence... Just for you, @"M"!

Some of those rose stems were beefy!! (My dainty size 9 barge, for comparison)


The prickly fruits of our labours.


The base of the rugosa stem. Do we need to take it all out? Cut the cut stems flush to e ground (currently about 6" long)? Cut the remaining stems down by half, to prevent wind-whip?


Looks different!


Whilst we were there, the Apple had all its rootstock suckers taken out too.