One year on....and beyond

That's ok, sorry I couldn't help more

 

I appreciate your idea @mazambo, thank you. I should have given more detail.

 

A definite Victor Meldrew moment @shiney. Sorry @Sheal you won't know who Victor was as he was a character in a tv programme and damned funny/dreadful he was too. Wish 1 Foot In The Grave was still going. To my mind there are very few really funny as opposed to just plain rude comedy programmes on the tv these days. I am now sounding just like Victor.

 

No apology needed @shiney. Thank you, so far 'A' has done the work that shows and I'm busy on all those bits that don't, like digging rocks out of the lawns. It's all necessary of course and will eventually make life easier working out there.

That's an idea, thanks I'll check those out although I may have the same problem with size. 18" diameter preferably.

I like your water leak story. I'd like to know how the diviner worked with a map though?

@silu I remember seeing Victor Mildrew a couple of times before our tv was ousted. I couldn't watch him for long as he drove me mad!

 

Thanks Shiney. I am aware of the dangers of bracken. Earlier this year I cleared it after it was totally dead and flat on a windless day. If the spores don't get me the Roundup probably will as I'll be using that when it re-shoots next Spring.

Roundup have released a new weed killer that's glyphosate free, containing vinegar instead. I thought it was illegal to use it here in Britain?

 

Eighteen months on now and although improvements have been made in the front garden it looks a mess - but it had to get worse before it gets better. Hopefully, with all the major work done I can now start to develop it.

Last week a local man (known as 'A' here) who does the work for me that I can't, came in to widen the turning area of my drive. With the contents of my garage now in the new shed our car has a home, but backing it out meant shunting a number of times to turn on the drive. 'A' dug out part of the lawn and gravelled the area as well as topping up the rest of the drive.







'A' also dug out the Bamboo and half dead Lilac trunk beside the oil tank. The Bamboo was quite shallow rooted and despite the rain of recent weeks it was very dry at the base. If you look closely just beyond the fence around the oil tank you can see two sticks. They are two different, young, variegated hollies I planted last autumn.



He also put up the trellis to disguise the shed from the road. The space has been left for storing my bins and other bits and pieces once I get some slabs down there. I still haven't decided on climbers for the trellis although I've had some lovely suggestions from our friends here. I have also planted three young roses around the far end of the tank to disguise that.



At the moment I'm slowly working my way through the half ton of soil that 'A' dug out, clearing it of rocks, stones and roots. That is being distributed into dips on the lawns.

 

Thanks FC. 'A' can lay his hand to just about anything and always does a good job.

 

Exciting development Sheal

 

Thanks Verdun. It's coming along slowly but surely.

 

Right, I'll get this thread under way again.

Returning to the back garden. The recommended Round-up Extra for killing the bracken didn't touch it either so I ordered Gallup from a website online. I sprayed the bracken in early summer last year (2019) and although it takes 6 to 8 weeks to work it has killed the bracken. Some re-sprouted this year and has had another dose so I'll have to wait and see what happens next year.



All the rocks are the remains of a dry stone wall that runs the whole length of the side boundary from the back to front garden. Although not enough to re-build I'll realign them at some point as this is a joint boundary and I need to define it.

I've still not made a decision about the bed in the back garden. For the last couple of years it's been home to a few plants and the runner beans I have grown.



Last year we started to experience problems with our septic tank drainage. There are three tanks, one for solids and two for liquids. These run across the end of the back garden at the base of a bank. The first lid you see nearest the fence covers a sunken area for a pump that moves the liquids on via a pipe from the solids tank along the bank, to the liquid tanks at the other side of the garden. The second lid covers the solids tank. The width of the garden is approximately 55ft.



The liquid tanks should disperse filtered fluids into a soakaway in the field at the back of the garden, shown below on the left of the tanks. The problem was that the soakaway had stopped functioning and the liquids released were coming to the surface of the field. With investigation from our man 'A' it was decided to put this right in Spring of this year. He first had to gain permission from the crofter who owned the field. That permission wasn't forthcoming, for what reason we don't know but he said to leave it as it was. Obviously we couldn't do that so we needed to find a different idea. We decided to ask the owner of the side field if we could drain the tanks into his field and he agreed.

Having got our heads together we decided against a soakaway and to lay a perforated pipe from the tanks into the field.



'A' started by digging out the soakaway at the back of the tanks and that soon filled with the drain off, which obviously meant that the old soak away had either collapsed or was blocked.



Having laid the first piece of pipe from the tanks he then dug through into the field.....



..... and continued digging a trench for the pipe 80ft down the field.



The pipe laid and the trench filled in. There are horses in that field and at one point 'A' had an audience while digging. They stood quite close and weren't spooked by the digger.



We decided that the only tree in the back garden, a 30ft Sycamore had to be felled as it was immediately over the pipes running between the tanks and we were worried about root damage.




The tree gone and 'A' tidied up the bank.



Since this work back in April I've been making repairs to the lawns which had been damaged by the digger tracks. I've uncovered the lids of the inspection areas and intended to re-seed the bank with grass seed. I will level the lawn line with grass seed but have recently decided that it's too much for me to strim the bank at least three times a year, especially with barbed wire that runs along the back fence. Come next Spring I will grow ground cover plants from seed and cover the whole bank with those, a lot less maintenance.