Mar 23rd, 2015

Author: donich_admin

Hard work in the Garden

The garden has been looking a bit run down (certainly not up to the standard of the previous owners) as I was tremendously busy and didn’t have a lot of time for it towards the end of last year. So over the last few days I have been having a major clean up and am pretty exhausted tonight.

The trouble with our garden (beautiful as it is), is that it is so huge that everything takes a major effort, and anything which needs bought for it costs a lot of money. By which I mean for example, that replacing wooden border edging which would cost £100 or so and take a day to put in in an ordinary suburban garden becomes a bit more of a challenge when you scale it up to over an acre (that is just the fully domesticated piece – the full property is over 3.5 acres). And garden programs on TV don’t really cover the kind of problems you get in rural Argyll – things like a tree is threatening to topple and needs properly felled and cut up, or sheep getting in, or deer eating the magnolias, or badgers destroying your lawn.

Anyway, today I cleared a load of last year’s vegetation and cut back a load of brambles. Pruned the clematises and honeysuckle, removed all the plants from the decking and hosed it down ready to be re-stained, fixed the summerhouse door and painted most of the inside of the summerhouse. Phew…

But while I was standing doing the painting, the sun was out and the rain pouring into the pond at the same time, and all I could hear was the rush of the Donich and the low murmuring of the frogs in the pond. And I though – this is a bit of alright….