The Garden, Part I
Work on the garden has begun. Yesterday Mike mowed the lawn as low as possible which wasn’t easy because of the irregularities of the land. Later today Olivier is coming to de-weed. Then the tractor comes to dig everything up. Meanwhile I’ve been pruning what needed pruning, removing dead branches etc. I’ve also removed ivy from some of the tree trunks. The clerondendrums (harlequin glorybower) look much better pruned.
In all the garden looks bigger which is excellent because it’s only 2000 m2, and the house and drive take up a tremendous amount of space. We need to maximize what there is.
Yesterday we decided to add three cypresses to the plan. Two will mark the entrance to the garden from the driveway, the third will mark the curve on the driveway to the garage. Here we go!
My Mazamet 
By Summer next year you’ll be having to host an open house/garden so everyone can see the changes you’ve made. The garden will be such an improvement but still imposing.
Hugs
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Pinky, I’m confused. First you mow the lawn, then you spray it? for weeds, then you dig it up? Wouldn’t the digging alone accomplish all that anyway? Oh and the pics are lovely.
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I know!!! I said exactly the same thing. The boy insists this is a way to ensure there are no weeds in the future. He’s not charging extra for it, so I decided I’ll just let him do it the way he wants…
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-grin- Fair enough, but I pity the weeds in your garden. 😀
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He’s doing what dairy farmers do (or did in our area) ….nuke everything and start from scratch.
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Yeah, it looks like a lot of thatch which will never grow properly and evenly.
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He insists that if I want perfection, this is the way to do it.
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Good grass keeps the weeds to a remarkable minimum and reduces maintenance for the lawn itself and can either sharpen edges between lawn and garden/walkways/driveways or softly incorporate some kind of patio stone for pathways (I used shellaced stump slices that took care of a damaged tree while providing a really interesting ‘natural’ patio stone facsimile). This means a rich, full lawn with self-producing loam with a stable water percolation rate down about 3 feet, a rich environment for worms and that earthy smell when it rains, and a place birds will love to hang about and advertise their good fortune to others. I have never heard any groundskeeper suggest a low cutting (because it hurts the ‘germ’ of the grass rather than the very upper blade) and the last thing you want is soil compaction so leveling a lawn usually is accomplished by the ground itself over time (again, less work to maintain it beyond aerating and feeding). So I’m a bit confused unless the groundskeeper uses some other method.
In my neck of the woods, this other method is almost always a significant chemical approach, which detracts from everything else mentioned (including adding a smell other than healthy grass and garden). Thick and healthy grass on our local estates is usually no shorter than 3 inches and often kept to 4 but is so thick that it still gives the groomed appearance (and feels wonderful on bare feet) and allows the cutting to be done in such a way that is appears in various patterns that add to the visual flow based on the owner’s preference (maybe from an upper bedroom window, for example, sometimes from a patio perspective, and this can change throughout the year making the garden and lawn appear different for different gatherings or times… you get the idea.)
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The entire lawn is coming out. We’re replacing it with new turf. What he’s going to do is remove the weeds, then rotovate, then wait to remove weeds again, then lay the new turf 🙂
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Got it. Looking forward to the finished product, so to speak.
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Who is this Mike, and why are there no pictures of him mowing the lawn shirtless? Single women demand to know…Ok well, it’s just me who demands to know. The garden looks good though, it appears you have “land”, what my mother would call “a nice size piece of property”. The “yard” (a yard, not a garden” here in Brooklyn is the size of a matchbook, but it’s private, as in nobody sees what goes on there…I can grow tomatoes, I can smoke a cigarette in a bra and silk shorts if I want to.
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Do you have moles down there? Up in the Centre they are prolific. Nothing is more aggravating than waking up morning after morning to new mole hills in the lawn. Not to mention having to remove them before mowing. Arrrgh! I hope you’re spared. 🙂
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We’re spared in the centre-ville, but once you get out of town people are plagued by moles. We met someone who has a house up in the mountains and who’s contantly at war with them.
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Real moles? As in, Wind in the Willows type moles???
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Do you not have moles in Australia?
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No. The only native burrowers we have are wombats. Not sure if this pic will come out or not. Hmm… not. Okay, this is a link to the page the pic is on:
http://www.britannica.com/animal/wombat
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I must be one of the few people who loves moles….we have a couple mole runs in our small garden & although they mainly burrow in the flowers borders, I didn’t even mind when one made a small hill on the lawn. The soil they leave behind is wonderful for using in pots.
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You are doing a beautiful job!
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Thanks. We were lucky in that the previous owner had a very good eye and employed an excellent gardener for many years 🙂
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