Monkey bars

In NZ the girls lived on climbing frames with Monkey Bars. In a weak moment I promised to add Monkey Bars to the climbing frame in Erica's garden. Here is the result (staining still needed).

I'm pretty happy with it, though doing it by buying a ladder was not cheap in money (about four times the cost of the wood alone), it *was* cheap in time, strength and quality of finish.

Digging a 0.8m hole in the top garden was surprisingly easy with the new longer thinner shovel (grouching shovel, trenching shovel?) I added to my collection of man tools.

30 seconds of scarifying

Aaargh, and loads of broad leaf weeds too.

Know the enemy

Clear sign of the neglect of the garden. I've never had a daisy his far advanced before!

Erica's new bed

Slow start to the day, but worked hard once we got going. Decision made about our old rose penelope (dug out but lives on in her offspring and a slit trench cutting), but decision deferred on the mulberry tree.  We need to do some more research there.



Erica watched with interest throughout. We were joined by a very vocal robin at one stage.

We also managed to trim our little hedge and shred everything using the lovely Atco quiet shredder. I still enjoy putting big stuff through it. It must be a man thing.

penelope had to go, but she has a daughter plant that has sprung up from her old root so that went next to the piece in the slit trench.  It will be interesting to see which bit survives the best.  We planted her in the spot where the children run down the garden and leap off the wall.  She may prevent that but may get destroyed.  We'll see.


The first refugees (Sedum telephium) from the slowly disappearing island border.




The pukekos picking over where penelope used to live.

Erica Surveying the Curves

We are pondering executing the uninspiring Mulberry tree.  Judith has been lobbying for this for years. We gave it a decade to come good but it hasn't.  A new herbaceous border needs a wider bed so the island border probably gets the bullet too.

Oops

Working on the new bed and found the lazily placed pipe from a few years ago. Think I will re-route it now there are no plants in the way.

Back in Blighty.

The garden was in a sorry state when we got back from NZ, though it was about the worst day of the year to look at it again. The lawn is mostly moss. The roses are gone to seed and the vegetable garden is covered in grass. The raised beds were a cat toilet. We'll post photos when we remember but there are not too many. It was so upsetting!
We didn't get very far with the New Zealand garden. It was a short growing season and it is hard to motivate yourself to invest in a garden you are leaving after a year.