A cache of gardening tools

2 comments

Dear All,

With the snow still present and freezing conditions likely all winter, I thought my gardening-related blog would also have to go into hibernation. However, I am rapidly discovering that gardening is not just all about plants, and that there is plenty to enjoy about gardening during the non-growing season.

At Shadowlands, we have a pump room, and also a boiler room. The Pump Room is of course full of pipes and the pump, but this only occupies less than half the space. There are two good walls for gardening equipment racks, and (something I only just realized) the outside metal door actually has an additional half-door which can be opened. This, now means I can get the barrow in and out no problem. It is positively Victorian! But, this weekend, I suddenly realized that I had never really ventured into the Boiler Room. So, curious, and with torch in hand I entered – not without misgivings (after the bat episode, the latent presence of Mukade (stinging centipedes), and some sort of nocturnal crickets). Instantly the torch light picked out a light switch, I flicked it, but the fluorescent tube above failed to come alive. No doubt a new bulb required – but good that there is a light source. The boiler is an oil system.

I shone the torch light towards the back of the room, and it quickly fell upon a great collection of garden tools! A positively wonderful cache. Spades, picks, clippers, shears, tarps, a huge mallet (great for doing the fence in the spring). There was even a long wooden trestle table – which seemed to be of high quality. I suppose it is for bonsai display. Some of the spades have seen better days – rust the main problem, but a good 20 or so of the items are in full working order. A bit of TLC and they will be perfect. Now I have plans to sweep out the Pump Room, white wash it, and make some tool racks.

As ever, enthusiasm got the better of me and in my elation, I forgot to take the pictures necessary to adorn a blog of this nature. Bear with me please, I’ll take some good snaps next weekend.

This find induced me to look under the Studio more carefully, and I uncovered an unused exterior basin, a huge deposit of high-grade charcoal, some useful concrete mounting blocks, and other odds and ends. I haven’t even been in the attic of the studio yet!

Clearly, as has been evident throughout my wanderings around the property, the previous but-one owner (the people who had the house built in the 1970s) really loved this house.

A interesting (I think) side note on the rose bed. Having winterized the roses in the nick of time by cutting back and heaping leaves in middens, I inspected the stems on Saturday. Two of the roses which still had some leaves seemed quite traumatized by the cold conditions, but as expected (and satisfyingly) the wild mountain rose I found in the woods and transplanted has already set its buds and is absolutely in its element. Another climbing rose I bought seems also to be doing okay, but time will tell.

Regards,

ptarotuos