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Wednesday 1 July 2009

EXTREME GARDENING

Well this is the front of the house. As you can see, the central strand of clematis and yellow climbing rose has fallen from the tenuous grasp it had on the central guttering and is hanging by the phone wire above the central bathroom window. There are extensions of the growths of these plants, to each side. I realised that the whole lot needed to come down because it was taking the wiring down, invading the pebble-dashing, blocking the view and light from the windows etc.
The problem is that when the job has been done the house will have a very different facade.

The first cut of the gardener's secateurs went straight through the phone wire! The cost of a BT call out is £115+£99 per hour. The gardener did a repair job himself in the end rather than face that bill and it all seems to be working well again.



It does look a bit bare...in fact it looks a lot barer than I expected. Well not really. I knew it would be bare. I am having the window boxes on the first floor removed as well. They cannot be gardened from the windows which do not open on the lower level. The double glazing provides an immovable lower layer and an upper awning opening.
At the end of the day all the climbing stuff will be gone.





It was a very warm day and J the gardener also "pollarded" the old apple tree at the front which had grown up into the wires above.





D had already made the front hedge and gate much smarter last week and ...





the old pond and ungainly tree and
much more was was removed in and around the front door.
I have told the Phoenix Centre that I don't wish to be in their "bank" of supply staff any more. I feel a bit of a failure for not wanting to go there any more but each time they phoned I realised how glad I was to be too busy.
More to come on that later. This picture shows some of the damage done to the garden by local children when they thought the house was vacant. I can do without spending my days trying to cope with such behaviour.
Cheers Gillian






3 comments:

Sue said...

I think your house looks much nicer without the roses hanging there and more light is always a great thing isnt it. I see you enjoyed your eye candy watching the gardener. It must be the middle of a heatwave over there at the moment being 33 degrees. We are getting some rain but the wind just blows it all away again in a matter of minutes.

Anonymous said...

Some houses suit the 'overgrown' look, but yours does look beter without the roses. Good on you for not choosing to go back to the Phoenix Centre, I feel like hell everytime I leave to work with children in Reception at the moment. I love seeing your pics of doing houses up! x

stitching and opinions said...

It's a big old house, very portentous, the roses did add a touch of gaity, maybe a bit of trellis in the future?.