Living It Up, and Chopping It Down

After more years than I care to remember, finally got my act together to make a return trip to Cambridge Folk Festival. 





Met up with a couple of friends from university, pitched our tent (after much searching for enough space!), and settled in for three days of music, cider and (we hoped) sunshine.




Noticed that they'd expanded the site a little - extending the field in front of Stage 1 back further, and making room for more concession / food stalls.

(Probably at the expense of the camping - hence the extended search for a pitch!).

For the most part it all looked very familiar though, with the addition of some interesting artworks (including two large male and female wickerwork badgers, and giant knitted bluebells!).

All in all it was a great few days - very relaxing, time to read as well as enjoy the music (which espoused a rather wide definition of 'folk').

The weather was mostly dry (even sunny) during the day, but with a few downpours in the afternoons / evenings.

Luckily we were mostly inside the stage tents when it rained - although it was amusing to see how some people dealt with the wet - one elderly couple seemed to be nesting under a set of umbrellas!


While I was chilling out and enjoying myself, Martin was hard at work at home on the hedges - returning to his leylandii hedge project (last tackled in 2015) - taking it down another foot or so:

Which left him with some major surgery on the other side of the hedge, where it had all got very overgrown:

So, while I was living it up, he was chopping it down - think he's due a well-deserved pint of his own!

Sunny Weekend

A bank holiday weekend of glorious sunshine (well, alright, it did rain on the Saturday) . . .

Made an early start on the hedges, as well as cutting the grass and other more general garden maintenance tasks - all of which generated a number of bags of garden waste.

Also found some time to enjoy the sunshine and relax though - met up with old friends for lunch, and walked the prom in the sunshine (taking in the views of the annual charity Raft Race).

On the bank holiday itself we were even moved to get the barbecue out - (as it appears was everyone else - had to make do with sausages, as we couldn't find a burger in the shops for love nor money!).


Just have to hope now that that wasn't it, and that the summer still has more sunshine to offer . . .

Cutting Back

Although we'd finished cutting back the leylandii hedge, work has continued on the other border hedges, which had also gotten a little out of hand.

Finally finished today with the front hedges, which Martin has taken down a fair few inches (hopefully making it easier to cut in the future, as well as improving the view!) - you can see the difference in level below:

Along the way we'd noticed that the privet sections were looking a little sad in places, with black spots and yellowing leaves, and some branches which appear to have died altogether.

Looks like we may have some kind of privet fungal infection . . .



We've cut out the dead bits, and cleared some of the ivy that was clogging up the base of the hedge, and may spray / feed in the spring.  If we get a hard winter that might help kill off the fungus as well.

Fingers crossed it doesn't get too bad - the hedges might be a pain, but they do give us a lot of privacy, and the birds love them!

Down with the Hedge

As you've probably gathered by now, we have a lot of hedges - and the golden leylandii at the back of the garden was one we'd probably neglected a bit.

So a couple of months ago Martin decided he'd bring it back under control.  From this (mid-July) . . .















. . . to this (by the end of August) . . .















. . . and finally, to this (earlier today):

It's all looking much neater now - but it was a major job (the field next door is stacked with the debris, drying out ready for a bonfire in the future, and some of the larger branches will be turned into proper firewood).

Just need to make sure we keep on top of it in the future!

Carnage in the Garden . . .

In addition to the work going on in the house, we've also been doing some 're-modelling' in the garden.

Martin basically took it into his head to tackle the (mostly) hawthorn hedge between the bottom of the lawn and the fruit cage.

It had gotten a tad tall - and as a result was getting difficult to keep in trim.

Whole sections of it have now been removed (not without some human carnage given this is thorny stuff), and hopefully it will now be a much more manageable proposition for the future.

 Before                                    After      

Sleeping on the Job . . .

After two weekends of cutting and clipping, and raking and digging, the garden may be ready for winter - but someone else is ready for bed . . .

Hedge Hacking Haste

In Mid Wales we are used to having plenty of rain during the summer, however, in 2012 the British Summer (as we have seen) surpassed all our expectations with the wettest June on record! The grass, the hedgerows and most of the fruit and veg have benefited from the relentless downpours, but general garden maintenance has been difficult. Fortunately the ground dries quickly and during a break in the weather on Thursday we were able to tackle the hedges.

Normally done over two or more days at a leisurely pace, Thursday saw 8 hours of constant hedge cutting interspersed with 3 trips to Ceredigion recycling to dispose of 6 builder merchant bags of cuttings.

We kept some cuttings for local composting, but most went for recycling. It was a tight squeeze getting two bags into the boot of the car, hopefully when it is time for the second cut in October the electrics will be fixed on the car towbar and we can use the trailer!

Following another break in the weather on Saturday, the lawn also got a cut. Martin hates it when the grass gets too long and is always complaining how messy it looks - although it's probably time now to get that third compost bay up and running!

Taming the Jungle . . .

Decided it was time to tame the jungle in the small greenhouse, in the vain hope that the cherry tomatoes will actually ripen.  Not sure that I haven't gone from one extreme to another, although so far no signs of imminent plant death!  I'll live in hope . . .





Tackled the tomato plants with a pair of secateurs, but Martin also has a new toy for tackling those hard to reach bits of hedgerow.  It also comes with a strimmer attachment, so no excuse for anything to get to the jungle stage now!

The Rose in the Hedge

We finished the first cut of the hedges today - after upgrading to a petrol trimmer (which has the advantage of having no cable to cut through!).



It's all looking very tidy now - and I managed to avoid the horseflies this year! 

We did leave one section though - the wild roses are looking far too pretty to trim back . . .

The Dangers of Hedge Cutting

Over the last few days we've been occupied with hedge cutting (see results on left).  We have rather a lot of mature hedges - mainly privet at the front and on one side, and a bit of a mixed bag (hawthorn, beech, yew) towards the bottom of the garden, plus brambles!

We tend to cut these twice, or at most three times a year - one big cut at the end of June (by which time hopefully the birds which nest within the hedges have got at least one brood out of the way), a potential late-summer 'trim', and the pre-winter end of the year tidy-up.  This year it has seemed like even more of a major task than previously - although we did 'remodel' one section, which involved a fairly radical cut.

On the whole it was just a bit of a slog in the hot weather, with Martin cutting while I cleared up the debris.  Ended up filling 5 of these big bags and taking them out to the tip - the trailer has come in really useful here!

And on the final day - despite having applied my insect repellent - I fell victim to a passing horsefly.  So I now have a rather impressive bump on my knee, and am popping antihistamine every 4 hours.  Hopefully normality will resume shortly as it's making it rather stiff going at the moment.

Giving serious consideration to investing in a zapper thing which generates a mild electric shock - apparently if applied to a bite within an hour or so it can help reduce the swelling and itchiness.  Will report back on said device in due course - although hopefully I'll never have occasion to use the thing if I do buy it!

Hedge Today, Gone Tomorrow

We'd been debating this one for a while - what to do with the hedge dividing off the square bit of garden at the side (where we've just put Greenhouse No. 3). Although it doesn't look too bad in this picture, the trees on the right hand side had died back considerably.


We started by taking down all the dead and dying trees, but then it just looked a little lopsided. So we finished by taking the lot down:

Must admit there is still one hell of a mess to clear up - it's a lot of tree! - but it has opened up the area considerably - room now for Greenhouse No. 2 maybe.