Kitchen Garden Forum

Yes, same with my work garden we have some catching up to do there still..... We did get the Rose garden pruned and forked this week and a third of the yellow border cut down and forked...but that was all working from planks and not doing the lifting and cleaning up that I know it really needs.

Tuesday the roads were awful on the way to work, just sheets of ice...and on the way home it was back to snow again. Poor old P reg Vauxhaul Astra had to go out in the snow for once on the drive back from MOT...it passed after fitting of a new front spring...I reckon it must have broken on the way to test or even climbing onto the ramp. ..as it was a very fresh break.

Tree fellows, four some days, have been working on the drive Limes, shelter belt trees and two Oaks in the garden removing deadwood above paths. They had a climb of the big Cedar too as a 15ft branch at the very top had broken in the gales and was hanging. I was pleased to see that branch safely down and also the trees in the shelter belt wood cleaned up too ready for our advertised walk through there looking at snowdrops.
Shouldn't joke,...but if the Stateside weather comes this way it could be a snowflake walk....

Dry, mainly sunny and still here today after the gales of this week.....shopping this morning, taxed 2 cars, two trips in to work to open/close greenhouses and do a few little jobs and a visit to see uncle.

Might get a bit more digging done tomorrow...?? when is this next snow arriving.??

Clive.

Cedar of Lebanon Clive?
If so I hope you snaffled some for logs, smells divine just as cut wood.

Yes, it is a Lebanon from 1812. Photo of it below, looking small, taken on 14-01-13. It is huge but doesn't look so in this photo with its 2 young colleagues left and right of photo. ...and yes, the scent from the cut wood is lovely.
We save what we can of any prunings around the garden of a size for a small wood stove. We also keep an eye out for anything suitable for turning. We saved some from the big Cedar after major damage that occurred in 2000 and a turner produced some goblets and a plates from it...amazing.

Clive.

Picture postcard quality, Clive, lovely indeed.

..and here's some Cedar photos taken in the middle of the gale that damaged it severely in 2000....it was sickening to watch and hear it being smashed...I took some photos quickly in case we were watching its demise back then.

It can never replace lost large branches but its growth extensions each year are good...but that is adding weight and wind damage risk all the time...

Clive.

Had several Edwardian planted ones where I was born and one outside an office I used to work at.
One of the former lost a limb the came out just above the ground and went up almost to the top, I think the weight just got too much for it, hit a car on the "B-pillar" and took it down to 6" high.
The office one was in an angle of the 80's tripling of size extension and had had a number of steel cross-bracing cables installed with bolts through the limbs and plate sized washers under the nuts. Obvious from the heights of the office windows, but nigh-on invisible from the ground.

A very stately and beautiful species of tree.

I should add,..Happy Birthday Peter.

The big Cedar has wire bracings.. I believe they were a 1980s addition...one had to be replaced after the 2000 damage.

Somewhere I have a photo of the 2000 tree work with tree surgeon in orange hard hat looking like a woodpecker on the main trunk. ...that photo certainly shows the true size of the tree.

Clive.

Got all our large wild garden cleared yesterday - it took all day and two trips to the recycling place to take the debris. We don't compost it ourselves because it will be full of seeds of different grasses, red campion, tansy, field scabious, knapweed, oxeye daisy etc etc and I don't really want to spread those onto the vegetable beds!

it all looks nice and tidy now and ready for the new growth, weather permitting. The promised snow hasn't materialised so far but it's been raining and sleeting all day instead.

Yesterday we went to buy a new (to us) car. Today we had to take paperwork to the garage. Then we called to see my sister, who I have not seen for a year. But I speak to her every week. And she was getting rid of a really good juicer and a large slow cooker. As our juicer broke down this week, we decided that we would keep both. Which has saved us a lot of money. (We juice every morning). Hopefully tomorrow I am going to start sowing seeds.

well, it absolutely poured it down yestrday. stair rods! so I went to visit my 3yr old nephew to give him his birthday present. Had a lovely afternoon, he is completely adorable! I did no gardening whatsoever, but I did peek in on my seed trays in the greenhouse, nothing showing yet