Developing a Garden in Bo'ness, Scotland

[David Nicholson]

The wall looks good with the fence on it Graham. Plenty to do but it's coming on nicely.

[Maggi Young]

Very neat effect with fence on the wall - looks as if it has always been there.  terrific to free up all the space taken by the hedge.

[Graham Catlow]

Thanks David, Maggi,
The wall as with most walls of this age has evidence of a previous metal fence, most having been removed for the war effort. I can't (so far) find any good photos of the house dating back
so not sure what the previous fence looked like.
I did find today an aerial view of the area taken in 1955 with a very small image of the house but the two trees are clearly visible and look the same as they do today like lollipops so I wonder if they have been pollarded in a past life too. 60 years ago and looking as large as the do today. I wonder how old they really are. The house dates back to 1898.

[Maggi Young]

Sounds like the trees may be original plantings which have been pollarded for a very long time. Fancy that!

[Graham Catlow]

Now you see them!


Now you don't!


Some of you will be surprised to see that I decided to have the two old pollarded ash trees removed. This was not without much consideration. Had they been specimen trees then I probably would not have done it but as you can see they had been ruined by pollarding and were nothing more than trunks with lollipop tops. I decided that I didn't want to develop the garden and let it mature just to take the trees down in a number of years time when it would be much more difficult to manage. The tree on the left already had a large area of rot in the bolus near the top.
I am amazed at how much more light there seems to be in the garden despite there being no leaves on the trees. Most of the neighbors are happy with their removal.
I thought the cost would be prohibitive and one quote was; being three times as much as the one we chose. I don't know what they would have done differently to make the quotes so far apart.
I plan to plant more trees in the garden but they will be medium sized and therefore more manageable.

[Cfred72]

This is radical ...  Clean Up 

[angie]

Graham took me five years to decide to take down some ash trees in my garden. I felt I was murdering them. Best decision I made. They never stopped the wind and shaded the garden to much. Miss the leaves though, used to have tons to make my leaf mould.
I would have been happy to fell those trees, they weren't very attractive. Can't wait to see your garden.

Angie 

[Graham Catlow]

Another clearance! This is the last of the beds to be cleared. It contained a mixed bag but worst of all several young ash trees that had been pollarded several times to presumably keep them in check and a very old, and again pollarded many times, cotoneaster. Several old mahonia were also present.

It was a raised bed but I plan to level it out as the. I realised shortly after starting the reason the the previous owners had raised the bed. It was to hide an old fireplace that they had buried
It brings a whole new meaning to the term crocks for drainage I haven't finished the job yet so there may be more.

The cotoneaster was really difficult to get out.

[David Nicholson]

I envy your energy (and fitness) Graham.

[Graham Catlow]

Funny you should say that David - I was thinking earlier how much longer things take to do these days.  Short bursts of action longer breaks for recovery.

[Graham Catlow]

Things have moved on in the front garden over the past few weeks.
I decided to lay a path from the front gate to the front door through the lawn. This was no mean feat as I did it all by hand - no machines to dig the path or lay the sub-layer (type 1) or to mix the 'compo' (concrete) the latter being done very ably by my wife (along with other labouring jobs) whilst I did the laying of the slabs. The slabs are Indian sandstone and are thin enough to make even the large ones manageable. I'm very pleased with the result as I had never done this before and I suppose it took me a lot longer than someone with experience.
The design is a random one and whilst I laid them dry first and took a photo to remind me what I had done I ignored it when it came to the final laying. As you will also see I have added slabs into the grass to break that up and have put some of my troughs in place ready for planting. This latter part came to me after I had laid the path and thought it just split the lawn with no connection to the rest of the garden.
Some planting will commence in the next few days - at last some real gardening
There is still some hard landscaping to do but that will take second place to the planting.

[astragalus]

That's a great job.  Hard to believe you haven't done this before.  The overhead shot is wonderful because it shows everything at once and you can see the design easily.  Hope you'll photograph the troughs when planting.

[angie]

Looking good Graham. Can see how you were pleased with yourself , job well done.
Angie 

[shelagh]

Doesn't look as though you will have the time or the energy to get to Glasgow on Saturday Graham

[Maggi Young]

Wow!  How natty is that? Very smart layout indeed - and looking as if you'd paid a fortune to some  "designer" to do it when it's all down to Catlow Power!
(I quite see how Shelagh thinks you're due  for a lie-down in a darkened room though!  )