Hiding all sins

I keep saying the Last of the Flood Damage. Will it ever end?  This is the steep bank in front of the house which used to be clothed in an elegant stone wall and fifty five thyme plants.

It wasn’t pefect but the wall was. Such a grand entrance for the farm.

But we lost that wall and lost the will to do another. So you may recall I planted dozens of hornbeams.

And they are the right solution.  But being young ‘uns, I have to endure the unsightly bald bank behind.  It’s too steep to plant up. 

So I decided to do a spot of recycling and hide the damn thing until the trees take off and it will no longer be an eyesore.

Ingredients to hand?  Chestnut sticks.  There are advantages to creating a garden on a chestnut farm.

And these ones are nicely seasoned after doing a year’s duty as the temporary fence to keep the deer out the potager.

Armed with willing helpers on a very hot day, we carted the hundreds of sticks down and started positioning them.

At first the idea was to stick them upright to form a more traditional fence.  But there is so little soil here after the flood (gack, I wasn’t going to say that word every again) that we decided to just lean them up against the bank instead.

And the effect is pleasing.  Rustic, definitely but I think it will be the business.  It’s a sort of vertical thatching.

Now all I need are about a hundred more sticks to really hide every trace of the bank.