Odd jobs

I spoke too soon in my last post. We’ve hit a snag in our planning application process and need to go (somewhat) back to the drawing board with our extension proposal. Not entirely unexpected, but obviously it slows us down from beginning work on the house. While we work with our architect and the planning officer to come up with a proposal that everyone is happy with, we (and our lovely local helpers) have been getting on with lots of different odd jobs around the property.

Steve, our arborist, has done a fantastic job of thinning out the overgrown yew trees at the front of the house. The interior of the tree had become choked with decades of ivy, smothering the bark and preventing new shoots from growing. At the same time, the canopy had extended outwards so far that it was shading a large part of the garden. Over a couple of sunny afternoons, Steve, trimmed a lot of it back, exposing the bare trunk beneath. Apparently by next year it should be filling up with lots of new, green growth. Some before and after pics below.

On a smaller scale, I’ve been hacking back some tree stumps around the property to try and discourage them from growing into full-scale trees. This is a small ash stump that has grown up inside the slate tables outside the old pottery. These tables were originally intended for drying straw on, but somehow a rogue ash has started growing up inside one of them, distorting the stone. I use an incredibly handy tool: a Japanese silky saw, to cut back the new growth. It’s one of the most useful tools we possess.

Carl and Roxy, our trusty garden clearers, have been stripping ivy off parts of the old walls of the walled garden. In places you can really see where the walls have become distorted by tree roots or a build up of soil and plant matter over many decades. Once our stonemason recovers from putting his back out, we hope he’ll be able to come and start restoring parts of the wall.

Meanwhile Ian, our tree surgeon (yes, we have an arborist and a tree surgeon – that’s how much tree work there is to do), has been cutting back the rotten trees around the edge of the property so that they don’t crash into the road. I estimate that we will have spent at least £10,000 on tree work by the end of our first year here. This is something that’s worth bearing in mind if you plan to take on a property with a lot of trees. Trees grow surprisingly fast, and they are subject to a lot of problems, from disease to pest damage to storm damage. Especially if your property butts on to another (and ours is surrounded by a caravan park, farmland, two public highways and other folks’ houses) you are responsible for making sure your trees don’t hurt anyone or damage property if they come down.

Fiddian has been very busy working out how to keep us warm this winter (the house does not have any central heating). He’s been looking at wood-burning stoves, getting the chimney swept, clearing the garage to make way for firewood, chopping firewood, stacking firewood and making us a lovely fire most evenings. He’s getting quite handy with the axe: something that I have decided I will leave to him as I suspect I would be more likely to slice off a toe than accurately split a log.

Finally we’ve been visiting friends old and new and taking advice on how to plan the walled garden and the new veg garden. Our new friend Barbara inspired us with her incredible vegetable garden and selection of sheds, greenhouses, poly tunnels, Shepherds’ huts and artists’ studios. In her seventies, she grows all her own veg, with enough to spare. We’ve been panicking a little about how we are going to manage our veg garden, but seeing how well she manages hers using no dig principles, we feel quite reassured. I’m not sure I want to take a dip in her outdoor bath, however.