Monster fuchsia work continues

The question was what to do with the remaining (still loads!)  of monster fuchsia stems now that space to stack them on the far side of the lane as dead hedging (fourth photo in this post; I live in hope that they will actually die!) is running out. I thought I could do a neat stacking between some of the stems I've left by the pond. Trouble is, if you lie cut fuchsia on the wet ground here (the ground is mostly wet) it will send down roots. Then I remembered two pieces of breeze block so I've placed them to hold the stems (trunks really) off the ground. This is what it looked like yesterday. I wonder how visible the stacked stems (there will be a lot more) will be when the still rooted, upright trunks are in full leaf?

This pile → that Toad cut out of the ridiculous rhododendron hedge back in December I stuffed into the back of the Rattletrap to take to the municipal dump, either just on a tarpaulin or, the smaller bits anyway, into an old coal sack that fell of the back of a lorry.

coal sack for garden waste

It really did fall off a lorry! And there were about half a dozen others stuffed into it. When we get our next delivery of coal I'll give them back to the coal merchant. The day they blew off was very windy and the lump in the road was making drivers nervous so I stopped, investigated and picked them up. They'd only have landed in the sea else. Might as well use them. I might hang them on a line to get rained on and cleaned up a bit. The others are all muckier than that one.

Working on the northwestern side of the pond (onto which I'd never got before because of the fuchsia-brambly undergrowth), making myself a path around it, hacking back fuchsia and yanking out trip wires of ivy, I came across the edge of what at first I thought was a stone. It turned out to be a lid of some kind about ten inches wide. It had clearly had a spongey lining so my guess was that it was the lid of a make-up box or something. The first word I found hard to make out but I think the whole thing is Amway La Collection Classique, Paris. According to that link, Amway made expensive perfumes and after shaves. So my guess wasn't far out.

What is baffling is how it got into the mud at the bottom of the Boggy Brae garden! Maybe it blew in; maybe someone threw it there in a hissy fit; maybe the lid was used by kids as a frisbee. 😀

So now, looking southeastwards from the boggy bottom north corner, this is what the pond triangle is looking like. Those fern stumps don't look much just now but they will explode into great cones over the spring and summer. You can see how raggy the Ridiculous Rhodo hedge is on this its lower side. I've managed to keep the upper side, that edges the drive, reasonably under control. My big project this year is to cut back some of this side. I'll need to hold back if I find nesting birds are using it, though this part isn't the thickest.
Further to the right, it's like a dark cave! If Rhododendron ponticum weren't such a savage invader, I'd leave the hedge messy, but at the very least I want to yank out the bridging, rooting shoots. There's also our oil supply pipe to get at, that Toad's going to scrub with a wire brush and paint sometime. Aye, right! 😉

cave of rhododendron, snowberry, unwanted ash seedlings, brambles, etc

Here's Scrawny (Scrawny has fans!), which is in the boggy bottom east corner, reflected yesterday in the pond:

Ridiculous fuchsia

Still hacking away, bit by bit, at the ridiculous fuchsia down by the front garden wall. I'm making dead hedges (or, as I like to call them tree tranmpolines; try standing on them to squash them down a bit: very springy) on the far side of the lane, using a few remaining uprights to stop them rolling down the hill. There are also some sycamore trunks  that would stop them further down but those are in someone else's garden.

The stems are about three metres long. My first fuschia dead hedge is actually a combination of two so it ended up five and a half metres long. Its props are young ash trees.

This morning, just as I was beginning to think it was time for a break, the chain came off my alligator saw. I'd been thinking it needed tightening a bit so that's a job for this evening.

There was no wind today.

fire is deliberately next to some overgrown
fuchsia and rhododendron–anything to discourage
the beasts!

Maybe with the fuchsia cut down to wall height, I'll be able to keep the live stuff like a trim hedge. Here's hoping.

Preparing to build a "dead hedge"

The sun rose in a nearly cloud free sky this morning a little before eight o'clock. By  a little after half past one it was slipping behind the hill that is behind the Boggy Brae garden. The temperature starts to drop after that. One has to make the most of short winter days. Today was a glorious one but I think we're in for a wet day tomorrow.

So I made the most of it pulling out spiraea and pruning the overgrown grey sallow, again. I think that particular sallow is done for this year though there are others elsewhere in the garden.

Spiraea with roots like this I am piling up to dry and supply a bonfire at some point (not tonight). I daren't include them in my "dead hedge" plans because if laid on damp ground they will simply regrow. I learned that boggy brae plant behaviour from fuchsia several years ago!

Here is a wee runner with roots, roots, roots. Given a chance to invade one's garden, spiraea will.

That said, the flowers are very nice in summer. Insects like them.

So, today I have got all but about three metres of what I suppose was planted as a wee hedge many years ago pulled out.


Below is the stuff I need to get at for my 'dead hedge'–all those old, moss covered stalks will be ideal. Getting at them is the job for another day (or days). Maybe I can use some of the still live shoots higher up the dead hedge, in the hope that they'll be too dead to grow new roots by the time they get to the bottom!

Here is a stretch of double fence on the south-east edge of the garden between RhodoDen and the field into which I wander for sunrise pics. I cleared it yesterday of rhododendron branches that were growing through it. Suitable dead stuff will be stacked up between the two rows of wire fence. Yes, that is an old Wayfarer sailing dinghy tiller extension that is propping up a bit of fencing wire. Waste not, etc.

And so the sun goes down on another boggy brae day and the temperature drops. Currently 5.6ºC and falling. I wonder if it will beat last night's low of 4.2?

I leave you with a blurry pic of the moonrise across the loch at the end of a satisfying and enjoyable day. Now for a large mug of coffee and a very large cookie that I made earlier.