Mowing and a new mower

Today I bought a new hover mower, the cheapest flymo I could find (£62 from homebase). It is mostly to mow the verge in front of the house but I used it to cut the whole garden from top to bottom today. The blasting Sun had all but scorched the grass and there had been negligible growth for weeks. Then when the rains finally came last week up shot the seed heads. My cylinder mower doesn't touch them and I pay the girls 1p per one to keep them down, but the flymo is a bit more efficient, albeit more expensive.

Mowing the front of the house is less of a chore than I expected. It is not ours, but the contractors who maintain it hardly ever come. My neighbours have shamed me for years now by keeping their half very trim. I finally caved in when it was looking particularly tatty and strimmed it. I continued with the strimmer but it is not a long term solution. The verge looks a lot better for being mowed. Our neighbours have planted flowers too, but I am trying to avoid battle. But maybe some flowers around the street light would make it easier to mow? Aargh, stop me.

From Surprised Gar...

The raised beds are dismantled and waiting for a whole series of events before being put in to use, namely:

1) Relaying the sleeper steps on to cement beds - they are getting a bit wobbly.
2) Moving the wavy wooden stake line (90 degree clockwise rotation, but needs to key off the top of the steps).
3) Levelling the top garden where the beds are going to go.
4) Buying and laying black weed suppressant sheeting over the levelled garden
5) Buying and wheelbarrowing the tonnes (and loads of money's worth) of soil and bark that will be needed in the finished area.

I got the bill for the wood for the beds - a little over £350. There is a LOT of wood there and the beds are huge and unique so I think it is a reasonable deal especially when compared to pre-fab ones that are less robust and nasty. Without the mistakes and if I had ordered exactly the right volume of wood it would have been around £320 I imagine. C'est la vie.

The grass I top-dressed looks OK now, though unfortunately the soil was mixed with builders sand and there are some pretty large (5mm) stones in it that got through the sieve. I guess they will disappear over time.