Kristen's Project

"you don't mess about with anything on a small scale do you?"

Blast, rumbled! These things get a bit of a life of their own, and I may be a bit guilty of not telling my Dear Wife until after its too late, what with me being a bit absent-minded and all ... :rolleyes:

I remember someone asking my Father (who was an accomplished word-smith) to what he attributed the success of his long and happy marriage and without missing a beat he replied "A very large garden and my increasing selective deafness"!

"I just can't imagine how you get all that done in such a short time"

All joking apart, I work from home and have been able to finish work this year at 6-ish, and with the long evenings I've been able to garden until 9pm or 9:30 most evenings for a month or two now. Together with a few additional hours at the weekend it adds up to quite a bit. My wife is a tidy person, so all those "make this flower bed look really smart" jobs, that I would budget 10 minutes for and not only be completely and utterly useless at, but also would make it look like I had cut-corners, she spends the hours necessary to make it look really smart, and even gets great satisfaction from the task.

You must also allow for the fact that there are economies of scale in having a larger project. Although to me "economies of scale" should mean that there is bigger equipment, so the job is done in half the time ... but actually means that the equipment costs 10 times as much. Boys-toys-z'is-good !! ... :D

I'm a bit of an eco-warrior (don't get me started on my superb skills Hyper-mile-ing :D and the fact that I can get 48 MPG out of our Renault Espace) anyway, where was I ... economies of scale mean that my 25 h.p. Chinese Tractor is going to mow a WAY more rough grass than a 12" push-mower :thumb: and eco-warrior, or not, I fill up, and spray, my 5L handy-sprayer with Round-up 5 times a week. I can't compete with folk that can dedicate more effort to spraying with soap-solution,and other natural remedies. Mind you, I can kick myself that I didn't plant Marigolds with my Toms, and am now having to do chemical-battle with Whitefly that could have been avoided :(

"Please keep us posted on progress."

You'll regret that request! Did I tell you that I am an "eco-warrior-crashing-bore"? :D

"PS: How many gardeners do you employ - be honest?"

Rumbled again ...

Tom has been with my family since the dawn of time. He is a typical Suffolk yester-year land-worker. Conversations tend to go along the lines of "Tom, I think we should do X-Y-and-Z" to which he, routinely, replies "<sharp-intake-of-breath>That's a big job, not sure about that ..."

I brush it off, but before I can turn my back Tom has finished!

One of these fine days something is going to go spectacularly pear-shaped, despite the fact that nothing has for the last quarter-century, and I know that the moment I remonstrate Tom is going to say "But I did tell you ..."!

Tom is old, also does work for our neighbours, and after walking the dogs every day only has time left for about 10 minutes gardening a week ... but no doubt you will draw your own conclusions ... :D

 

Just checked yesterdays Blog Stats. Thanks guys & dolls!

 

Oh my goodness Kristen so much hard work has gone into your plot you must be on some kind of wonder drug to do all that, it looks stunning well done.Hel.xxx.

 

Wow! That's a huge garden! It looks mighty impressive though.
And I thought I was doing well having bought a house with a garden of about 250 square metres. :D

 

Sounds like an intresting project, ill have a good look at your blog when i get more time.

 

"you started talking JCBs...!!!!! ... That speaks volumes..!"

That is a TERRIBLE Pun :D :D :D

We've been barrowing soil to fill the marginal area around the pond ... but that is slow hard work (and we are only making a hole in the herbacous-bed-to-be that will have to be filled later) so I have relented and have 5 (1m^3) bags of topsoil delivered this morning which I am hoping our kind farmer will transport round to the pond with his telescopic loader so we can "just" tip it into the beds.

I've got a few new photos, so will do an update soon, but I figured no point annoucing an update that only turned out to be a single-photo

 

well ive had a look, yove got an amazing plot, tons of potential. The veg area looks fantastic.

 

I've added some updates showing what I did during July

 

"Did you get your friendly farmer bring your top soil round.??"

Yup, he carted the bags round which saved a huge amount of time, and effort :thumb:, (he also has a pile of topsoil for us but that will have to wait until "off season"

Pictures here

"Oh & will this be a fairly formal pond, or will you have wildlife areas around it as well.. Or, are you keeping your woodland area for that"

Good question! We have pretty good wildlife, as we live out in the country side (woodpeckers, magies, pheasants, squirrels all visit regularly, and we get some ducks and morhens <Spit!> in the spring).

I'm keen to have some fish that are easy-on-the-eye, but realistically we have so many projects work-in-progress there is no point, yet, if they will be abandoned-to-death. I might try 3 or 4 Goldfish or Orfes to see how they get on. I can just see the Next Big Project being something to deter Herons

I want some floppy-plants at the water's edge (to disguise the edging stones). I've got a dozen, or so, Astillbe's I grew from odds-and-sods this Spring, so that will provide some planting.

I think we (finally!) worked out this morning how we are going to cross the junction between Centre and Right ponds this morning. It seems to involve also being an Eastern Pergoda :p

Because this pond is lined I don't really want the dogs going in it, and possibly puncturing the liner, so a pond in the woodland are is a definitely possibility. There is already the big hole there where I got soil to fill in the old pond, and that holds water in the bottom.

Probably depends on whether we suddenly have a pile of material we want to get rid of - in which case that hole will be filled in

 

I've added some updates to my blog showing what I did during October which includes removing the front hedge, and digging some holes for a row of pleached limes, and some holes for trees in the Woodland area. Basically playing-diggers :thumb:

 

I was hoping no one would ask that :( I expect the Great Grand-children will enjoy them!

 

Just expanding on that:

I'm staggered what "semi mature" plants cost.

Green Beech 30-45cm are about 34p each. 90-120cm = £1.20, 125-150cm = £2.23 ... I figure I need around 200-250, so its a simple cost-benefit equation of Wallet-v-Impatience

EDIT: Then there is "Instant Hedge" from the likes of Practicality Brown (cool name though!) [assume 3 / metre for a single row] which works out at £ 285 / metre - and that is not including VAT :( :(

The Yews are worse. Clearly getting some specimens will save time, and look smart sooner. And I only need half-a-dozen. They start at about 1.75 for 30-40cm, but ... get this :( ...60-80 cm = £3.44, 2M = £72.85, 2.5M = £204.45, 3M = £893.00 :(