<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-18102" src="https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Puddle-001-Wm1.jpg" alt="Puddle 001 Wm[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"][1]" width="1280" height="853" /> And still it goes on.. Gardening is impossible here at the moment. How I wish I could get outside. But when I've tried to put my welly boot on any piece of ground it just sinks three or four inches and the hole fills up with water. Cabin fever has got me in its grip . Watching sentinel.. A couple of posts back, Frances drew my attention to the moss on the trunks of the trees. I suppose because it is here all the time, even through most summers, I don't notice it anymore. The lushness of green in this shot could be straight out of summer. The quality of the light in the background gives the clue. Fleeting rays of sunshine penetrate right through to the woodland floor. The trees are bare. These ferns though are growing straight off a branch perhaps 20 feet up in the air. The river. Brown and running at full pelt. The bottom of the valley is many feet below the house and the water level drops again as rapidly as it rises. This time last year the view was hidden by dense hedges and trees. Yet this morning I was watching three deer down there. Mama, Papa and Baby Deer. What a reward for clearing it all out. Someone will need to wade out when the water level recedes and remove all the fallen branches. The chainsaw will be called into action here too. One falling tree has put paid to five. For the height of these trees, I believe this one was an ash, the rootball is tiny and shallow. It's hardly any wonder that storms bring them down, especially when the ground is as sodden as it is right now. And this morning we're in the grips of Storm Imogen. Promised 70 mile an hour winds at lunchtime. The lights are already flickering. I'd better push the publish button in case we lose the power.. [caption id="attachment_18111" align="aligncenter" width="250"] pin it?[/caption] [/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17423" src="https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Lawn-Edging-001-Wm2.jpg" alt="Lawn Edging 001 Wm[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"][2]" width="1280" height="853" /> If you've been following our efforts since the start of the year ( here ) you'll remember that we've been gradually trying to open up the view from the lawn. Surrounded by tall trees and hedges it felt oppressive to say the least, not to mention the impact all that greenery was having on light levels inside the house. By September just this single hedge remained, left in place until we could be sure the birds had finished nesting. The lofty perch atop the builders' scaffolding provides a different angle as work progressed Mike used a brush cutter to clear the ground immediately below the drive and give us access to the large sycamore tree just at left of shot. Using its trunk as an anchor we could then winch out each of the philadelphus shrubs forming the hedge. Déjà vu: a new 'heap' marks the spot at the end of the drive.. Unbelievably all of this went up in flames in a single day, far too much of it to cart off down the dump. The last photo before the scaffolding came down. Most of the hedge now removed. September November From a solid green blob of a hedge to the beginnings of a vista deep into the woodland. The river meanders around those two conifers dead centre. The trees remain for now, although I have to say the jury is out. Maybe see how we feel about them come Spring. Looking up river from what used to be the hedge September November After a bit more levelling I plan to plant a lonicera hedge to make a new curved boundary to the lawn, 12-18" in height. Thankfully, it being winter, they'll be no wild parties in the meantime. With risk of guests tumbling off the edge. As if. It's coming on. [/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

In the beginning... We first viewed this house in the middle of winter and acquired it a couple of months later, before the leaves had emerged on the trees. So while the rest of the northern hemisphere enjoyed the lengthening days and stronger light of spring and summer for us it grew darker and darker, as the tree canopy started to close in. To the left of the drive in the photo above is the area we now know as the Precipitous Bank. The first job on arriving here was to have those conifers down. The surveyor insisted. Air circulation was so poor around the back of the house that the thatch roof was decaying much faster than it should. It didn't do so much for a peaceful night's sleep either, not with those trees thrashing around wildly at the merest hint of a breeze. December 2013 This year has seen work commence around the other side of the house too.. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-16167 size-full" src="https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Tree-Felling-001-Wm1.jpg" alt="Tree Felling 001 Wm[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"][1]" width="1280" height="853" /> Lawn border May 2015 Lawn border a few days later Now you see it... Now you don't Our strategy has been to push the trees further back from the house... just a bit. To remove those presenting a threat to roof, life and limb or those that had a significant impact on light. There is more work to do, the tree surgeons will return later in the year, but already there's been a monumental difference. There used to be a fence between the spruce and the house. I didn't get there quite quickly enough with the camera.. Mike already had the bit between his teeth. September 2015 The next job is the scruffy old hedge running down the hill from the spruce stump. It's not native. Most of it is philadelphus, liberally interspersed with brambles. Now that the birds have finished nesting we've started to clear it out. The hedge from the other side The acer far right will stay. The rather dead looking tree to the left of it is a hawthorn which I'm proposing to reduce by at least half, with the hope of spurring it on to a second lease of life. There are several self seeded ash and sycamore saplings congesting this group and they will go. As will all of the philadelphus except for the small portion that I've carefully protected immediately above the bench. It's wonderfully fragrant for two weeks of the year but, quite frankly, for the remaining fifty it just sits there as a pile of mediocre leaves and an awful lot of twigs. With the philadelphus gone the whole of the lawn will be opened up down to the river, bordered by a low lonicera hedge. There'll be a new path too, starting just to the right of the bench and linking the formal part of the garden with the wooded area beyond. It's the first time I'll have done any real landscaping on the woodland edge and I'm conscious of the need for a proper transition. Corylus maxima 'Purpurea' I found this purple leaved hazel the other day. Close enough to a native tree to be in keeping, but with the purple foliage providing something a touch more ornamental as a backdrop to the lawn. I'd been pushing a cart around the garden centre with the Hydrangea 'Limelight' that featured in the Bloomers post last week. The two of them came together for the briefest moment and it was love at first sight. When I plant the corylus with the acer and hawthorn the hydrangea will go in alongside. Wouldn't be fair, would it, to split them up now. Not that I'm banking on getting any nuts. Oh no. I know who'll be getting first pickings of those. He of the grey bushy tail. And he's not my only problem either.. "Mum, there's some people up there looking at me.." "It's alright dear. You just go finish your dinner. I'll stand guard." Oh for heavens sake. Linking up with My Garden of the Hesperides for Garden Bloggers' Foliage Day and Christina who is progressing some rather grand designs of her own. [/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

A short post today because our problems with broadband seem to be going from bad to worse, with BT unable to find the source of the trouble as yet. An engineer arrived early yesterday morning but since then we've still had numerous outages, no broadband at all throughout the evening and a phone line that sounds as though it too will give up the ghost at any minute. The thought of putting up a dish and going with a satellite provider is becoming ever more attractive. I can only continue to apologise for rare appearances online, both in responding to comments and visiting your blogs. I am doing what I can in the limited windows of opportunity and hope you will bear with me. In the meantime, to finish up the tree felling story, I'll leave you with this.. one and a half days' hard graft reduced to a mere 15 seconds: [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"][layerslider id="13"] Crikey, if they’d worked that fast we could have afforded to do the lot! [/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]