Off The Edge Gardening

It all began with one of those light bulb moments, the ones that my clients are beginning to fear. I was merrily working away at the du Maurier’s earlier in the week when my gaze strayed towards the Roman Colosseum, or rather Mr du M’s  almost full sized interpretation constructed solely from willow.  As they say “once an architect, always an architect”.  As I consider myself to be somewhat of a horticultural matchmaker it crossed my mind that perhaps I could redistribute some of the prunings.  And I had the perfect candidate in mind.   The Farm.   The du Maurier’s kindly agreed to let us have whatever we wanted, so the hot iron was struck.  Yesterday morning Mr G and myself headed over to pick up some neatly bundled willow rods, full of burgeoning potential.

The area I had in mind to renovate was a scrubby piece of planting above the pond.  It is essential to have some disincentive here as a safety barrier but the hodgepodge of thorn and cornus is both ugly and prickly.  Two characteristics most definitely to be discouraged.  What we need instead is a beautiful, sculptural, organic fedge.

The first thing to do was to make a plan.  Luckily for all concerned, draughtsmanship is one of my many talents.  It didn’t take long to produce an accurate drawing for us to work from.

As usual Slasher rose to the challenge, clearing the site and humouring me with equal enthusiasm. What I initially understood as looks of wonder at my amazing plan, from both SS and Mrs G, I later found out were in fact masks of utter confusion.  Happy in my ignorance we forged forward and once cleared the slate was clean and ready for the construction.

Armed with essential tools we were ready to create some art!  After a little head scratching (and more puzzled looks) we worked like a well oiled machine, with me as Executive in Charge of Cutting to Length, Slasher was Director of the Measurements and Holes and Mrs G String and Knot Monitor.

We were progressing well until Mrs G received a Loose Animal Alert.   This was followed by a prolonged interlude for some wild calf chasing, stock counting, an imaginary ginger heifer and Slasher encountering a giant cow.  As it turned out the escaped beast was not one of The Farm’s well behaved and orderly stock.  Naturally.

The programme was set back considerably, but luckily we had some contingency built in.  In my experience this is often a necessity.   So back to work and as the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon the job was finished.  Almost disappointingly no one had fallen in the water, the only casualty was the tape measure, which was fished out unharmed.  In the dimming light and the now persistent rain we patted ourselves on the back for a job well done.  Farm Force strikes again!

You must agree it looks exactly like my drawing.

ps This photo was taken today, as by the time we had finished it was too dark for a good shot  of the finished article.

pps  Watch this space for the next project, I am thinking Taj Mahal ……

A definite downside to all this mild and wet weather is that it is the perfect atmosphere for fungus. Magical fairy rings, sinister shaggy inkcaps, delicious ceps and athlete’s foot, all love these conditions.  This leaf is showing the signs of an advanced case of the rose growers least favourite spore Diplocarpon rosae, Black Spot.  Today I spent a merry half hour in the gentle drizzle removing each infected leaf and picking up every fallen one.  This outbreak is unlikely to be catastrophic at this time of year, the rose will be shedding its leaves soon enough.  What is important to is to lessen the chance of further infection next year by destroying all the bad stuff.  Burn it yourself or let the council deal with it in their supersonic composting systems which reach such temperatures that would melt Hades.  Of course we are kidding ourselves that it won’t return at all next year, but we can just hope it won’t be severe enough to stunt growth and disfigure our lovelies too much.  However, on close examination, I did think this leaf had a certain beauty, a little like an impressionist painting.  Perhaps I had been staring at it too long.

One of my favourite sculptures in one of my favourite places.

 

This is for anyone who has forgotten what sunlight on a vine leaf looks like.  Or indeed sunlight full stop.  Although this photo was only taken last weekend, it seems a dim, distant and dry world away.  It has to stop soon, surely?

I have been trying to get a half decent photograph of a ceratostigma flower for weeks.  My virtual bin is full of the pathetic, the out-of-focus and the unremarkable.  This photo is barely a quarter decent but I have given up trying for even near perfection.  Soon it will be too late to ask the question, “can there be a better autumn blue?”.

I am feeling much chirpier today.  This could be due to the fact that I haven’t ventured out into the continuing bleakness.  Today I am warm and dry, it is a very nice feeling.

It is still raining.  All being considered this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.  After all it is North Devon, it is autumn and I have a lingering Hammer House of Horrors cough to nurture.  Mr and Mrs G swanned off first thing telling me they had a very important meeting to attend, leaving myself and Slasher in charge.   There were many apologies and heart felt regrets that they would not be able to assist us today, there may well have been tears.  Instead they would be having an absolutely dreadful time in the warm dry “lunch included” meeting.  They leapt onto the No. 1 “going out to meetings and other important events” tractor and waved farewell.  I swear I heard Mrs G shout “QUICK DRIVE!” as they slowly screeched off into the distance.   Poor things, I thought as I stood alone in the drizzle.

Today, I decided, would be an excellent day to tackle the problem of the long raised bed.  This bed is very long.  I wish I had paced it out to give you some detailed information but I imagine that more accurately it would be regarded as very, very, long.  To accentuate this longicity it is also rather narrow, probably less than 2m wide.  The mythical previous owners had planted this raised bed with some very unsavoury characters.  These plants are not only invasive but, far worse and almost unforgivable, they are extremely dull.  “Walk past and not notice” tedious.  “Nod off half way through the conversation” boring.   I had been promised that Slasher could be my slave for the day (although I had been denied the badge that I wanted him to wear).  As always he seemed keen to help.  That lad has a very short memory.

So we began, SS attacking some particularly gruesome grass with all the grace and elegance of a brick (not SS you must understand, the grass. SS is very elegant).  I was tackling one of the islands of Jerusalem artichoke, with its creamy quick release tubers, which didn’t even have the decency to flower this year.  As we worked we chatted about the joys of working outside, even when the weather was inclement.  We mocked the soft-handed office folk, we chortled about how a little bit of wet never hurt anyone.  As if testing our resolve the rain got steadily heavier, the wind stronger and gustier.  The persistent downpouring had found a weak link in my armour, discovering a gap where a gap should not be.  There was the sound of dripping water, from nose, sleeve and ankle.  A morass was beginning to form, the bed was fighting back.  Eventually we looked at each other “a bit heavy now don’t you think” and ran for cover.  Discretion truly is the better part of valour.

And it did.  And it wasn’t really a little.  Less shower, more downpour.  And I had left my waterproofs at home.  I know, “call yourself a professional” and all that, but I have not been my usual super-efficient self of late.   Mind you, I may have imagined that self.  The deluge began in earnest just as I was getting vicious with an out-sized cornus.  Perhaps it was for the best.  So I took my consumptive self inside to discuss plants and make plans with Max’s Dad for a couple of exhausting hours.  Looking through catalogues, googling, gossiping, swooning and dreaming, with me playing the devil on MD’s vulnerable shoulder.  Not a bad way to spend a morning.  Beats working for a living.  Mind you that cornus still needs some work, don’t think I’ve forgotten you!