More hard landscaping
Gee, some plants would be good.
Well we aren’t at that stage yet, so don’t get your hopes up for anything green.
Have some mulch instead. Lots and lots and lots of lovely mulch.
And a tree. A huge beech tree. Yes last time I wrote I was gazing lovingly at that huge pile of beech cut down and stacked on the road.
Too heavy to lift. So Hooman cut the enormous discs into bite sized chunks while I was away with my loads of bricks.
And we loaded the car together. Me marvelling that he would call these huge boulders bite-sized. And trying not to think about my aching back. And gushingly grateful at his kindness. And wondering what on earth I will do with them.
Actually I have an idea. But first I had to sneak them onto the plot.
No parking close to the gardens, it was a long and very slog. And with the added frisson of the parking police.
The pieces are going to go in the central circle of the garden. Possibly in the form of a curving low wall. But they are so heavy to shift that all I could do was heave them into place and hope for inspiration next month when I recover from the effort. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle but one I can’t lift. Sure could do with Nicolas the French wall builder coming by on a flying carpet right now.
But if I can’t shift logs, I can do another permaculture bed. That’s progress. Here is the action sequence. Weed the plot, dig out the base and put aside. Place the first layer of logs (I didn’t have enough) and sticks. Then the layer of dried matter, a few bits of looted cardboard. Stamp down. Pile on the soil. Stamp down again. Mulch.
And then spend the rest of the afternoon playing with the bricks.
I have a fox or a small dog who is enjoying the mulch as much as me.
There is digging. There is flinging stuff about.
So I ended the day grubbing about my stock behind the giant rose bush (a place for all mess) for old chicken wire to drape over the new permaculture beds.
Until I get things planted up I suspect it will be a battle to keep it this neat.
Cynthia
7th October 2018 @ 7:06 am
You sure are a glutton for punishing yourself, Lindy,
but admirable! Too hard to forgo the pleasure of donated wood chunks, available bricks etc.
Today at the community garden it mostly rained, a most unusual thing. We have had about 75ml over the past 4 days – I am not complaining. Desperately needed. So when I finally retreated home everything I had on was wet and clammy. Great.
Those bright daisy like low growing flowers, yellow and orange mostly, that we saw while evaluating Clontarf gardens, are gazanias. I knew there was a z in there somewhere but not as the initial letter as I thought. Very bright and hardy plants, requiring little attention here.
I’m sure you’ll be finding much to entertain yourself with in the French garden soon.
Love
Lindy
8th October 2018 @ 10:35 am
Gazanias, of course! the ones here in Europe are overbed top heavy monsters. I’ve never seen them as they should be (South Afrian?) low growing like that. so pleased you had a drenching. Well, the garden, not you. I’m back out to France tomorrow and yearning to stomp about and see what is left in the vegetable garden, and whether the wasps have left me any figs.