It is now Thursday morning, and all the bits are assembling for our major hedge-planting frenzy on Saturday. Two 1-tonne bags of compost arrived yesterday, and our 12 new beech hedge trees arrived an hour ago.
We have two of these - this one is posing in front of the place were the hedge extension will be planted, the other was unloaded further up the drive, out of the way for the next subproject...
The trees look fine - they must all be about 6-7 years old, and have good-size root-balls in moist soil, wrapped in sacking
Beech hedges are pretty tough - they are an iconic feature of the scenery in the Scottish Borders. These specimens are locally grown, which is a useful reassurance; it is not unknown in these days of online shopping for people to order young plants which grew up in (for example) Kent, and for some species the Scottish weather comes as a big shock
I'm hoping we can get away without staking these - they look pretty robust, but I'll be on stand-by on Saturday morning in case it is decided we need to get some stakes in a hurry!
Obviously, it is nonsensical to speak of "The Garden Project". Gardens, like dependant relatives and tax returns, are with you forever; if at some point you find that you are thinking in terms of a new garden project, then in my experience what you mean is that the garden has got out of control, or something bad has happened, and what is now required is some special effort to get things back on track. It is still the same project really.
To chime with this concept of a continuing, ageless project, here is John Martyn with an echo from my long-gone hippy past.
Having established that what is going on here at Chateau Foy is yet another catching-up session, I'll try to explain what's been happening.
As a background theme we have the small matter of the actual gardeners.
(1) We had the same gardener for about 15 years - the bold George. He was good in the sense that he was reliable, and local, and he did a nice, tidy job of weeding the beds and pruning, but he had very little understanding of actual plants. There were some mistakes - occasionally serious - which became more problematic as the years passed. At one point he managed to weed out our prized edelweiss, which was all the more strange since he had carefully left it alone for the previous 10 years. Perhaps he forgot. Also, as he got older, he became less capable - it took him longer to do the same jobs, and I was often disappointed by what he had done. As the end of each gardening year approached, George would say to me:
"Well, this is all getting a bit much for me now - I'm thinking of retiring this winter - only trouble is that I need the cash, since my wife likes her 3 holidays a year"
And I would hear my own voice saying something like:
"No, no, George - we'd be very pleased to see you back here to help us around March time..."
Eventually, his dwindling effectiveness became a nagging problem. A worse irritant in some ways was his endless banter about keeping the bloody foreigners out - especially the brown ones, since they were just after our jobs and free health care and housing. George may have been the only Daily Mail reader in Dunbar, come to think of it, but I did reach the stage where I was thinking seriously that any foreign immigrant - especially a brown one - would be most welcome to come and replace him in my garden.
So, sometime in late Autumn 2022, the usual mention of George possibly retiring resulted in my wishing him well, and saying he deserved a good rest.
(2) We did some research and some trawling online, and we came up with a highly recommended local lady - ex local authority - who had set up in business as a gardener. She had a brand new van and posh tools and everything, and her background seemed very promising - she was a horticulturalist - in her youth she had trained at Kew, no less. So Spring 2023 we set off on a new journey, with our prestigious new garden maintenance lady. She seemed very promising, said a lot of the right things, but very quickly revealed herself as someone who liked to tinker with someone else's herbs and potted alpines, but was what I might privately refer to as a lazy bastard. On average she would turn up for about 2 scheduled visits in 5 - she was very unlucky with her health, and she seemed extraordinarily prone to freak accidents.
It transpired that she actually needed to take a lot of time off to do child minding for her son's family, so eventually we agreed that this wasn't a lot of help, and I wished her well too.
Thus from July 2023 we have done most of the gardening ourselves - not very well, and I have been getting more oppressed by my own lack of ability and the things which weren't getting done.
(3) I'll jump ahead now to the end of last year, when I made contact with an excellent young gardener who is actually the son of a good friend of mine. He has a lot of excellent experience, and is very knowledgeable. He works for a contract garden-maintenance firm in Edinburgh, but is happy to work for his own customers at weekends to earn extra cash to get him started in business on his own. It's all working very nicely at the moment, though we are in a period of working hard to get things into shape after the lengthy slide into ruin.
Changes to the garden have been running for a few years - usually because something had outgrown its space or because Nature interrupted the flow with some calamity or other. I now have a regular account with a local tree-surgeon firm, who shift trees and do maintenance on big hedges. So they do big fixes and emergencies, and they do a good job. Keeping the garden sensible and comfortable around these enforced changes is a challenge in itself.
I published some posts at the end of 2020, when we had some landscaping done - re-profiling our driveway and removing two old juniper trees which were out of control.
Since then we had a non-routine situation in October 2023 when our huge (and much-hated) leylandii hedge was partly flattened by Storm Babet, and we had to get the wreckage removed and disposed of by the tree surgeons.
By the end of last year, we had a developing problem with the last surviving juniper, which was becoming an obstruction in the lane past our house and which was starting to push over an ancient stone wall. On 12th December the tree surgeons appeared yet again, gave our big beech hedge its regular haircut and removed the last juniper. Gone.
Next stage is to rebuild the garden around all this strategic clearance. The new gardener (Matty) is a great help with this, and next weekend he will plant a 6-metre extension to the beech hedge to plug the gap in our defences left by the missing juniper. I am expecting delivery of 2 tons of soil-improver and twelve 8-foot beech plants in rootballs during next week. On the 15th March it will all happen. If all goes well, I'll record progress here.
After that the next priority is to get some new shrubs planted where the leylandii used to be, but we'll get to that. There are other jobs getting done, but the big targets are the ones I am concentrating on. Once again, much of my evening reading matter is about hedge management, or lawn restoration, or flowering shrubs. You may think this is a little sad - that's OK - it is a little sad, but I'm enjoying the sense of momentum!
Righto - a couple of photos from the morning of 12th December. Here you can see the last juniper waiting for the executioners. Its two brothers (which had "gone before" in 2020) used to be on the grass area to the right of the remaining tree
Here you can see how the juniper tree had to be cut back to avoid blocking the lane, and how mis-shapen it had become
Since 12th December we have a big gap in the line of the front hedge
The stump grinder did a good job of chasing the roots down into the ground. This is where the new hedge plants will go in next week; you can also see the extent to which the stone wall has been bent and cracked by the old tree - I am assured that it is strong enough to stand!
The beech hedge is about 10 feet high, so the new 8-foot plants will take a while to merge in, but it should all be OK if the wind and the deer leave them in peace!
Today's developments in Washington have caused a change of heart here.
There is nothing I wish to discuss further about that unbelievable kindergarten show, and - reluctantly - I now feel that my previous post was both ill-considered and inappropriate. With apologies, and my thanks to everyone who contributed, I've decided to pull it. My personal boycott will quietly continue, but I do not wish to dignify what is going on over there by paying attention.
I must start off here with an apology to my various American friends; nothing personal, chaps.
It's been a bewildering few weeks at the start of what is obviously to be a New Age. All previously assumed givens about ethics, patriotism, honesty, justice, democracy, diplomacy and a lot more besides are going out of the window. Maybe it's overdue; maybe I just don't understand.
OK - deal with it.
I have to hope everything works out all right, and try to avoid saying the wrong thing. Stay out of the way.
However, there are some fundamentals. Since Mr Trump has decided to stamp out world trade (out of spite, as far as I can see), I had better climb aboard, dizzy with excitement, and cast off anything I ever learned or believed. I even propose to have a little initiative of my own. Not quite a New Year's resolution, but I'll give it a bash.
The markets are everything, so out of respect I propose to follow the new lead. If European goods are to be subjected to the rumoured 25% US import tariff, then I shall follow suit, like a good fellow. From this point, as far as possible, I shall avoid purchasing any products which are made or branded in America, or which contain American ingredients.
I don't suppose the USA will notice, but if a billion other people follow my example, that would make a difference.
Something a little different this morning. I like to make small collections of music appropriate to the historic periods which I wargame - nothing overly serious, just mood-setting stuff.
This started about 10 years ago, when I put together a couple of CDs of Napoleonic marches (a stirring addition to tabletop warfare, though you have to stand ready with the off switch when it begins to do your head in). This is an interesting way to unnerve an opponent...
I tried to extend the idea to the War of the Spanish Succession, but was immediately challenged by the fact that bands didn't actually march in step at this period, so any formal "military" music is mostly music containing sound effects which parody warfare - typically composed by Lully and Delalande and similar, for the entertainment of Louis XIV and his guests at gala dinners. There were regimental bands, but their main duties involved playing concerts or festive music.
Thus it is no surprise that the ECW presents the same problem. There is contemporary "soldier" music available on record, much of which consists of ribald drinking songs. I was pleased to come across the work of William Lawes, a native of Salisbury, in Wiltshire, who spent most of his adult life in the service of Charles I. William was a composer, lutenist and viol player who produced an impressive portfolio of sacred and courtly works.
William Lawes
William survived the Siege of York, and seems to have spent his time with the Royalist army. Charles had him seconded to the King's Lifeguards (possibly to keep him close to the monarch, and out of harm's way); Lawes was killed at the Siege of Chester, in the rout following the Battle of Rowton Heath.
Here is a sample of his music for small groups - if you are interested, there is a fair amount online, much of which is very pleasing. This has been one of this week's better surprises.
While I had my head in eBay I also spotted a Tey Potteries building from my old wish list, so I bought that as well - very cheap - these must not be trending now.
This one is Oliver Cromwell's house, which I believe is in Ely (is that Cambridgeshire?).
It amuses me to have my battlefields and siege towns sprinkled with National Trust properties from all parts of the UK. I don't know that much of the ECW took place in Oliver's actual garden, but the house will be useful for 17th and 18th Century scenarios in various parts of Northern Europe. MSFoy's Rent-a-Landmark Productions at work.
