Zoe Vs Tree

What I'm obsessing over this week

Check this out. The middle tree fell down. The middle. Mature tree, it’s been there for 15 years. Prime of its life.

I know it looks unhealthy, but it wasn’t. I had already lopped off all of the green growth when I took the photo.

Penny (client) asked me- why did it fall down? I said… errrrrr how big was it when you planted it? Not a mess of roots all wrapped around each other? Nope- it was very responsibly grown.

Penny asked me- what about the others? Will they fall down? I said… errrr if you had asked me if the one lying on your grass would fall down, I would have said no. So I suppose they might.

Get this- it fell down in the wind. Opposite that bank is the house. So this tree, the most sheltered out of all 5 on that bank, fell over because the wind hit it hard enough at the right point. Cripes.

I went out to investigate, photos don’t seem to capture it- the one closest in the photo is not wobbly but the ground is raised around it (because the roots below the ground have been lifted up higher than they were previously). So that has to come out, too. Then we have the third and biggest tree. It looks happy! It is also going to hit the house if it does fall. So do we remove both of the remaining trees? Sigh….

Penny tells me, Zoe, don’t worry too much about the third one. We don’t hang out on that side of the house very much. So if the third tree falls we should be ok, we won’t get hurt. I like Penny. I will be removing the third tree just in case. She makes a good cuppa.

What staff learnt about this week

We had some pretty hairy banks to plant out this week, so we talked a lot about how to weed and plant them out. Typically our landscaping plans are fairly fluid, I choose the plants, but make sure that there is a bit of flex with where they go, so eg plants that hug a bank can be put in the slopiest spot to cover big drops.

Highlights: We managed to plant quite a large, steep bank out in 3hrs, which was awesome! Alex smashed it out.

Lowlights: Not so lucky on Thursday, where a 6hr job has definitely become a 12hr job. Don’t use non-biodegradable weedmat. Just don’t. Weedmatting inevitably just has weeds growing through it, so when we have to remove it, there is a big hammock of dirt on top, with lots of weeds holding it on. This particular job had the old (desireable) plants, which had all died, also growing through the weedmat. So we have to slowly cut the weedmat out with scissors and then dig the various stumps etc.

Some garden tasks for this week

Convolvulous and The Spring Weeds have started up, check this sad guy out-

So weed around and rescue your plants- remember to remove the roots of the weeds. Mulch them where possible.

Don’t trim anything you like! All of those beautiful new growth shoots have most of the plant’s energy in them, so trimming plants now will remove all of that energy. If you have any ivy kicking around and you don’t like it, trim it now, cut it back etc. Because you want to take as much energy out of the plant as possible!

Thanks everyone, have a great week!