Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

As we started to chop the top down, we could see a much more dense level further down. This was the original hedge height, where it had regularly been cut back to. We cut it back to a few inches above this layer, to leave some greenery for the winter.



We'd taken a good twelve to fifteen inches off the height and probably about eight to twelve inches off the width.

 

16th September 2021

For all the time I've had my Dodge, it was painted up as an airfield Flying Control truck. Basically, it was an air traffic control tower, that was mobile to be used at which ever runway was in use. When we moved house, the plan was to raise and widen the garage doors, to allow the Dodge under cover. However the builders let us down. With winter coming, I still wanted it under cover. So if I couldn't modify the garage to fit the Dodge, I'd modify the Dodge to fit the garage. This took the next month of my time with everything else on hold.



Ten days later, the Dodge was brought out of the garage and turned around so I could work on the other side.



It was complete on the 17th of October. With the Dodge finished, we could turn our attention back to the garden while the weather lasted.

 

Congratulations on all of your hard work @ArmyAirForce . You have achieved so much in such a short space of time. I will be looking forward to further updates.

 

So will I. Gosh you are a hard worker!

 

2nd November 2021

Over the year, with the trees gone, the former woodland area had sprouted quite a lot. All of this was going to be cleared for the next phase of the garden work. That work would begin in 2022.



While we had a lot of work ahead of us in 2022, 2021 wasn't over yet and the driveway Laurel needed cutting again. My neighbour says he sneaks out at night and feeds it!

 

The re-seeded lawn was looking fairly good and all the Laurel was tidy. We felt like we'd had a pretty good year. So much work in the garden, multiple rooms decorated in the house, my workshop rebuilt and my Dodge stripped and repainted. By the end of the year, I'd added another twelve inches of loft insulation and all the loft was floored.



Back when we first moved in in February 2021, I mentioned I chopped one Laurel flush with the ground, to allow me to turn the trailer. By November, the stump was now twelve inches tall! I think Laurel is indestructible.

 

IT is, and I find the more you trim and prune, the more it grows. Not something I would ever plant as it adds to its sins by being just another green blob but with broader leaves than conifers.

 

Not my choice either. When the previous owner split the plot and built a new bungalow at the bottom of the garden, they put a load of Laurel on the boundaries to make a quick growing divide.

2022

In January and the start of February, I was still finishing off the loft flooring. It wasn't a time to be outdoors. At the end of January, Storm Malik hit the UK. Being on the edge of the village and near the top of the hill, it was quite exposed. On the 29th of January, the storm felled our pine tree.

I waited for the wind to drop a bit, but it was still wild when I went out to check the damage and even standing up was a challenge. Upon closer inspection, it appears that this is the second time that the pine tree has been felled!

Looking at the first of the smaller pictures below, the tree fell to the left and forwards. The second small picture, shows a ninety degree bend in the trunk - going from right to left and then away from the camera.

It seems that it was first felled some time ago, to the left and then started growing vertically again. Storm Malik felled it a second time, twisting the horizontal part of the trunk and tipping the vertical part to horizontal.

While the original horizontal part of the trunk had twists and splits in the wood and bark, it hadn't completely sheared. I had my fingers crossed that this was enough to keep it alive. I was correct and it remained green and by Spring, it was coming back to life throughout the whole tree.

 

26th February 2022

Towards the back end of February, we were back out in the garden. The Laurel that had been cut to a stump and then re-grew, was dug out and moved.



It was relocated to the other side of the garden, on the boundary between our lawn and the neighbour's drive. There were a few gaps where the original plants had died, so we planned to fill these gaps.

 

Later in the day, we were back to trimming Laurel again! In September, we'd taken about a foot off the top of the workshop Laurel to keep it presentable and green over the Autumn and Winter. This chop was to take it all the way back to its original maintained height, where all the branches and stems were really dense. We'd leave the front uncut for now, to help it survive until the Spring growth began.



27th February 2022

The next day the Laurel beside the steps had the same treatment. We were gradually bringing it back to a sensible height and width. The fence side wasn't so easy to get the hedge trimmer or loppers in. That was another reason to try and keep the height lower.

 

After the steps, it was the turn of the main driveway Laurel. Once more, the height was pulled down by at least a foot. The trailer is about five feet high, so the final hedge height was around three feet.



Once that one was trimmed and all the clippings bagged up, we were done for the day - well and truly done! This of course was just ongoing maintenance and we hadn't started the real work yet. If Laurel trimming seems to feature a lot in my posts, it's because it features a lot in our gardening duties!

 

25th March 2022

We just did a little tidying of the garden in late March. There's a couple of Buddleias which needed cropping. There was a bit of general weeding too.



26th March 2022

The following day, we needed to tackle the three Yew trees by the sun room patio. The shortest, seen on the right, was around 11 feet tall. They were all thrashing around a great amount during Storm Malik, so we decided they needed to be reduced in height and width.



The tops were cropped, sides trimmed and then they were bound with some green nylon string, in the middle and top to hold the branches in during strong winds.

 

9th April 2022

By early April, we were ready to start on the observatory, although there was still a lot of ground work to do first. The woodland area was covered in low height plants that had sprouted since the trees were removed. However, the whole area when first planted, had been covered by a weed membrane.



While it was still a lot of hard work, we didn't have to dig everything out of the ground, but instead, dig/lift the plants and a couple of inches deep of root systems, to get back to the weed membrane. One or two roots had penetrated down through it, but in the main, it had stopped plants coming up and roots going down. It took the whole day to clear this area and we still weren't down to the weed membrane everywhere.

 

13th April 2022

After a garden centre trip, we came home with six more Laurel plants. These were all planted along side our neighbour's driveway, filling in the gaps left by plants that died.



14th April 2022

On the 14th, I began to mark out a potential location for the observatory. At my old house, I had a home made micro-observatory, only 4 x 5 feet, built onto the side of my daughter's playhouse. It was just big enough for one telescope. The new observatory would be 12 x 8 feet, accommodating two scopes, each on their own mount.

There were a few tree stumps I needed to work around. I didn't want to grind them out, as that would leave the earth very loose in areas where I needed substantial concrete foundations. Working around them would give me hard packed earth to dig and a firm area in which to pour concrete.

After pegging out the corners, I was able to plot where the telescope piers would go. Both landed close to tree stumps, so the whole footprint of the observatory was moved about 8 inches.

 

Wow! What a challenge your garden's been! The hard work you've put in has paid off and it's looking really good.

With the observatory area now underway it'll be interesting to see how that comes together too.