two jobs done

Today I finished two of the garden jobs on my 'to do' list.  The first was to rig up an elaborate cat's cradle of string along the dahlia bed, to deter the chickens from scratching in there when they are let out for their evening constitutional.  Since the dahlia bed has been liberally dosed with organic mushroom compost, given a thick coating of Strulch, and watered, it presumably contains an above average quantity of worms and insects, and the chickens love it.  I was so surprised (in a good way) that any of the dahlias had survived the winter left in the ground, that I made an effort to get the bed into good heart earlier in the summer, and even managed to pick up a couple of young plants of the orange double variety 'David Howard', which together with a stray dark leaved plant that had overwintered in the greenhouse, will help plug the gaps.  Having got this far I should like to see some flowers, and not for the whole thing to be raked over and destroyed by chickens.

I leave the stakes in all year, as well as the dahlias.  They are square cross section tree stakes, as bamboo canes are utterly inadequate for the job.  In the past couple of seasons I've been upgrading to heavier gauge ones from the Clacton Garden Centre, as I found the slim Gardman brand ones stocked by B&Q rotted too quickly in the ground.  To make the array of stakes look more cheerful I paint them in red, yellow, and all shades in between, using acrylic paint.  While not marketed for outdoor use, it lasts remarkably well.  The string is at multiple levels from 8cm to over 30cm above the ground, weaving back and forth and diagonally across, to try and make the area look uninviting to a chicken's eyes, like a trap.  I'll see how it goes.

The other job was to finish cutting the elder bush that grows up the back of the veranda, and had reached the eaves.  I used to try and eliminate it entirely, as it had seeded itself there and wasn't part of the plan, but nowadays I look on it as a useful support for the climbing roses and honeysuckle, and only remove the branches that are blocking the view, or sticking out too far into the border at the back of the house.  I could reach some branches from the veranda with the long armed loppers, but the others had to be cut using the Wolf loppers on a pole.  I got these at the Hampton Court Flower Show years ago.  They consist of a heavy pair of sharp jaws on a two part metal extendable pole, which are pulled shut using a cord.  When I first saw the contraption I assumed it was a gimmick and could not possibly work, but the salesman on the stand used one to cut a stout twig, and I realised that I was wrong.  I bought one, and then began to wonder how I was going to get it back from Hampton Court to Colchester on the train.  It turned out that if collapsed to the shortest possible length of handle it would just fit upright in the train as long as I stayed in the middle of the carriage.  I didn't dare try and take it on the tube, and walked from Waterloo back to Liverpool Street.  It is a well-made piece of kit.  The jaws are rigged with a four to one mechanical advantage as regards the pull cord, and are very solidly constructed, so don't twist sideways instead of cutting like some cheap or badly adjusted loppers do.  I don't enjoy using it, though.  The pole extends to about 4m, and feels awfully heavy when held fully extended above my head for any length of time.  It is generally a struggle to see what I'm doing up there, and I always seem to get the cord wrapped around things.  However, it does the job, cutting up to 2.5cm in diameter if the wood is young and not too hard, and reaching to places I couldn't reach otherwise.

The boss at work has a chainsaw with the cutting blade on a long pole.  I've eyed this up covetously, but they are expensive, and he does have an arboretum to justify the investment.