New to all this. Phase 2

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A bit of a mish-mash of jobs this year!
December 2006/January 2007. There were three very tall conifer trees growing about two meters from the back door of the house. Not only were they tall – about 60’ – but were also leaning towards our neighbours house. There was no question that they had to be removed! When we asked the neighbours whether they would mind (they afforded them a fair amount of privacy) they said no, on the contrary they would be delighted to see them gone! And they wouldn’t mind if we erected a shed in their place. So, it was decided.

However, we had to get permission from the local Commune office. We live in a very ‘green’ Flemish Commune and in order to remove trees with a trunk diameter of more than 30cms we have to apply and pay for permission to take them down. If you plant a deciduous tree in place of whatever has been removed, you don’t have to pay. (Well, you do but you have it refunded when you provide proof of the new planting but, we only found this out later!). We had to complete a form (in Flemish) outlining the size and type of trees to be removed, why we wanted to remove them, and what if anything, we would plant in their place. Hmm.. A shed?? We duly sent off the form and finally got the permission we needed.

February 2007.
Sometimes being a golfer has its advantages. The green-keepers of our local golf club don’t have a huge amount to do in February and agreed to help us cut down the conifers. So armed with ropes and chain saws they set to. Notice the lack of safety helmets? The guy up the tree was wearing a safety rope but that’s about it. Elf & Safety? Pah! (Sorry, I don’t mean to be flippant but this is how they work).

About 10 trailer loads of tree were duly taken to the recycling centre. And now it was just the roots!
That was a job too far for me so I had to wait for my BH to find the time…

In the meantime, the golfing season was starting and as we hadn’t had time for golf or a holiday the previous year we decided to take some time out from renovations and garden work to enjoy life and what we had done so far.

My mother wanted to give me an English Rose to remind me of England. So I chose ‘Brother Cadfael’ a David Austin Rose which I planted in the January of 2007. You can just make it out in the middle of all the lavender in the photo below. The well that you can see was to become my biggest bugbear in the garden! Anyway, you can see the result of my work on the border. You will also note that the old cherry tree trunk has gone! Poor cats…

By September and the golf season almost over, BH had decided that enough was enough and he really had to get to work on the shed area and get those old conifer roots out.

Now that all the roots were out, we could level it all off and get the concrete base in place ready for the shed which had been delivered eons ago!

But,(and there’s always a but isn’t there?) Running half way down the garden was an old two foot high sort of willow fence which was falling down and higgledy-piggledy. So before we could erect the shed we had a new fence to put up! Guess who got the job of prepping all the panels??

As the previous owners had planted a few raspberry canes just outside the back door, we thought it might be a good idea to continue and make a sort of soft fruit border and herb area, hence the strawberries that you can see below. Now, you will also note that the area in front of the new fence looks a bit of a mess but I’ll tell you about that in due course!

Anyway, with the fence up..

we could now erect the shed!

OK. Are you bored yet? Nearly finished this phase.

Do you remember the area where BH removed the old tree stump? Ha. Well he wasn’t done yet. Oh no. (I like to keep him busy :-)) There was a very ugly, dark and imposing hedge of old conifers. Yep. You’ve guessed it. They had to come out. So with chain saw and winch, oh and a pick axe, it was heave to me boy. (& girl!). I tell you, that old well came in handy for putting the winch chain round!

I don’t have a photo with the end result, but I can assure you that the replacement hedge of Prunus Lusitanica was a whole load better!

So now it was nearly Christmas and time for a little break.
End of Phase 2.

• 2 Feb, 2011
• 4 likes

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