privet hedge - gone

To bring power, water and phone lines onto the site, a metre deep trench has been dug that followed the route of the privet hedge which separated the woodland garden and the orchard and vegetable garden.

Privet is an unlovely thing, so we were pleased to see it removed.

And while the privet was being ripped out, the big digger took a quick sidestep and tore out the two cherry stumps left in the vegetable garden that remained from our earlier ground clearance. These stumps concealed a Medusa's head of dense and thick roots that would have been impossible to remove without a machine. And removing these stumps and their roots will now make the creation of our vegetable garden raised beds much more 'do-able'.

But the empty space left by the removal of the privet hedge created a headache. Thankfully, Steve had got the digger driver (also Steve) to use his big bucket and scoop out clumps of birch in the area we hope to use as our flower meadow.

So, on Wednesday, 'the boys' planted nearly fifty seedling silver birches in an informal row. Thanks to Gary, Jim and dad we got the job done in record time.

In the years ahead we hope to move these birch trees to new homes at cordwood and replace them with shrubs and small trees that will form a permanent boundary between these key sections of the garden.