Wall building
Well this was unexpected. Nicolas wasn’t scheduled until August. And suddenly he had one spare day and would I like a labourer?
Yes please.
You can imagine how thrilling this is. I was stalled by the lack of walls around this steep bank. No point planting up if heavy stones needed to be lifted into place.
So 8am’s meeting mainly involved me waving my hands in the air and pointing and Nicolas eye rolling.
But here it is. Two long walls and two small walls right beside the guesthouse that hide lots of lots of unwanted small stones. And a stone path.
Most of the stones came from the stack I had created beside the guest house. But a few had to come from the forest near the parking area.
And I was on small stone duty to help with the path.
The path came from a question about how I’m going to get up and down this very steep bank in future.
The answer was a careful excavation and placing shallow stones to make a path.
We can’t dig too much on this top part of the bank as it comprises most of the fallen down wall from centuries earlier. Held together with grass roots.
The path stops about six feet from the top as it’s way too steep. I need to think how I’ll sort that in the future.
So my original intention of digging it all over, removing plants and then mulching and planting up might have to be modified.
But I need to attend to the rest of the bank first. Nothing like getting ahead of oneself with over-excitement.
I think I’ll put the lavenders here.
I’ve never planted so late in the year. Or so early in summer. It needs thinking. And plotting. Right now I have all the propagated lavenders in their pots in the potager, getting a drip irrigation dose.
Dare I thrust them into this alien environment? Let me have tea and get distracted by the Tour de France and come up with a solution.
Cortney D
21st July 2017 @ 10:08 pm
I’ve been planting perennials (dry-soil-sun-loving-types) late in the summer (like now) but have had success waiting to do it the night before a cloudy/rainy day. Those can be hard to come by, but the plants I’ve put in this way look great and strong despite being planted in July. Might be worth a shot to plant them in on a day like that? Good luck- the walls look fantastic!
Lindy
22nd July 2017 @ 6:10 am
Thanks for the tip Cortney; I’m going to do a post about my technique (bucket of water in the planting hole before the plant.) but I love your idea. Now all I need is cloudy day!