Death of a tree
In the corner of our garden lived a tree. It was quite a nice tree, surrounded as it was by some bushes, which we pruned regularly. It nestled snugly in the bottom left corner of the garden, and was used chiefly by our cat, Chatouille, for climbing onto our neighbours' shed and gaining access to the roof of the garages that back onto our garden. It has been there ever since we moved in to the house less than two years ago, and we mostly noticed it by the fact that it blocked the sun from reaching the end of our washing line.
After our first year of growing vegetables in the garden, we decided we needed some more space. Our veg patch is quite small, and we filled it quite easily this year with some courgettes, purple sprouting broccoli, French beans, wild rocket, leeks and carrots. Some friends of ours have a lovely garden, quite small, but with an amazing quantity of fruit and veg growing around the borders! We considered doing something similar, but decided that first we would clear the corner where the tree lived. We can expand the edges of the lawn later.
Removing a tree is quite a big job! It has taken me several days of heavy labour, stretched out over the course of a month or so. So far we've filled the council green bin three times with the small branches and clippings! Once I've finished, and I'm within sight of the end, we'll have a nice big patch of ground to use for more vegetables; those that prefer shaded areas, though, as it doesn't get much direct sunlight during daylight hours.
I started by cutting down the bush, starting on the right-hand side. I sawed through the wood quite close to the ground, and worked round, pulling out the branches that I had detached as I went.
It didn't take too long to cut down all of the bush. There turned out to have been five actual plants, of two types.
All of that took most of a day. I then spent a couple of hours digging up the root bowls of the bush plants, before levelling the ground again and starting on the tree itself the next day.
The branches came off pretty easily. I sawed the thicker branches, and used loppers on those thin enough. I had Chatouille's support in the project at this point. She found the trimmed tree quite easy to use for getting onto the shed!
That was the easy bit. I now dug up the tree! "Now" took several days, however, spread over a couple of weeks. There was a concrete post under the tree, which may actually have been placed there to keep it upright, but made it very difficult to get to the roots. Most of the roots went back under the shed and the back fence, so that made them very difficult to get close to!
Chatouille was very helpful throughout.
After much effort, the trunk became loose! I then rocked it around, loosening it some more, and chopped through the final root. Success!
To test the drainage, we poured some water into the hole. It did drain away in a few hours. I believe that means that the drainage is good.
Then I dug out the concrete post, which had a large clump of concrete at its base, and cut the roots back to the sides.
Once I'd done that I started to dig the ground properly. We intend to plant vegetables there next year, after all!
I'm trying to "double dig" the area. It's hard work, though! The subsoil is quite bad quality, and above that there was a thin layer which may have once been the tarmac surface of a path which used to run down the side of our garden!
I still haven't finished digging, actually. Hopefully it won't be too cold this weekend, and I'll finish it off. I have a big pile of compost to dig in, too. I'm not entirely sure what to do with the concrete post, though...
After our first year of growing vegetables in the garden, we decided we needed some more space. Our veg patch is quite small, and we filled it quite easily this year with some courgettes, purple sprouting broccoli, French beans, wild rocket, leeks and carrots. Some friends of ours have a lovely garden, quite small, but with an amazing quantity of fruit and veg growing around the borders! We considered doing something similar, but decided that first we would clear the corner where the tree lived. We can expand the edges of the lawn later.Removing a tree is quite a big job! It has taken me several days of heavy labour, stretched out over the course of a month or so. So far we've filled the council green bin three times with the small branches and clippings! Once I've finished, and I'm within sight of the end, we'll have a nice big patch of ground to use for more vegetables; those that prefer shaded areas, though, as it doesn't get much direct sunlight during daylight hours.
I started by cutting down the bush, starting on the right-hand side. I sawed through the wood quite close to the ground, and worked round, pulling out the branches that I had detached as I went.
It didn't take too long to cut down all of the bush. There turned out to have been five actual plants, of two types.
All of that took most of a day. I then spent a couple of hours digging up the root bowls of the bush plants, before levelling the ground again and starting on the tree itself the next day.
The branches came off pretty easily. I sawed the thicker branches, and used loppers on those thin enough. I had Chatouille's support in the project at this point. She found the trimmed tree quite easy to use for getting onto the shed!
That was the easy bit. I now dug up the tree! "Now" took several days, however, spread over a couple of weeks. There was a concrete post under the tree, which may actually have been placed there to keep it upright, but made it very difficult to get to the roots. Most of the roots went back under the shed and the back fence, so that made them very difficult to get close to!
Chatouille was very helpful throughout.
After much effort, the trunk became loose! I then rocked it around, loosening it some more, and chopped through the final root. Success!
To test the drainage, we poured some water into the hole. It did drain away in a few hours. I believe that means that the drainage is good.
Then I dug out the concrete post, which had a large clump of concrete at its base, and cut the roots back to the sides.
Once I'd done that I started to dig the ground properly. We intend to plant vegetables there next year, after all!
I'm trying to "double dig" the area. It's hard work, though! The subsoil is quite bad quality, and above that there was a thin layer which may have once been the tarmac surface of a path which used to run down the side of our garden!
I still haven't finished digging, actually. Hopefully it won't be too cold this weekend, and I'll finish it off. I have a big pile of compost to dig in, too. I'm not entirely sure what to do with the concrete post, though...
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