All winter long, I yearned for summer. For all the usual reasons, but also because we’d just moved into a new house and I was looking forward to getting out there and spending lots of time tending our fantastic new garden.<\/p>\n
Things didn’t exactly turn out as planned. I was doing okay for a little while, and I even did a bit of fence<\/a> maintenance<\/a>, but on the whole, things haven’t progressed perfectly smoothly. Let’s compare what I have and haven’t done, shall we?<\/p>\n * Dead-headed all the roses (mostly) * Replaced the rotten planks in the gazebo In summary, my garden terrifies me. It is an oppressive force in my life which I try to forget about whenever possible.<\/p>\n The problem is that it used to be such a nice garden 12 months ago, before we moved in. I was really looking forward to maintaining it at the same level. But I have been unable to, and I have found myself in a downward spiral where my fear of “ruining” it has prevented me from being as assertive as I should have been. Plus, I’m also quite lazy, when all is said and done.<\/p>\n As I see it, I have a couple of options.<\/p>\n 1. Hire someone to come in and do the work. A gardener, if you will. What are your thoughts? Graybo, you must be around here somewhere. Tell me what to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All winter long, I yearned for summer. For all the usual reasons, but also because we’d just moved into a new house and I was looking forward to getting out there and spending lots of time tending our fantastic new garden. Things didn’t exactly turn out as planned. I was doing okay for a little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gardening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pete.nu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pete.nu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pete.nu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pete.nu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pete.nu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pete.nu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pete.nu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pete.nu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pete.nu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Have done<\/h3>\n
\n * Repaired a couple of fences
\n * Kept the place clear of Japanese Knotweed (mostly)
\n * Kept the paths clear of overhanging branches (mostly)<\/p>\nHaven’t done<\/h3>\n
\n * Severed the thick trunk of the wisteria that is currently prising my gazebo apart
\n * Kept the gravel free of weeds
\n * Kept the borders free of weeds
\n * Fixed the water feature
\n * Removed lots of dead branches ((there are lots of places where plants have been cut off at the base as a drastic pruning method, but the dead stems have not yet been removed. It is not a trivial task, as they are tangled up with the roses etc))
\n * Pruned the wisteria properly (should have done that in July)
\n * Replaced the rotten garden chair
\n * Disposed of an old fence post<\/a><\/p>\n
\n2. Cut everything back down to ground level with a chainsaw and see what survives.
\n3. Napalm.
\n4. Combination of chainsaw and napalm, because they’re both awesome, and I can’t choose between them.<\/p>\n