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Pay it in circles
Feb. 15th, 2010 05:08 pmRegular readers will have gathered that, on Saturday last, a very kind 'steel monkey' sat in my old pear tree and gave it a thorough and much-needed prune.
We are trying to save this miserable old tree, as it has been suffering from some kind of blotchy twisting on fruit and leaves for 5 years.
So our next step is to do all we can to help the pear tree roots. E made a great start lifting out the creeping grass, and I have fed the patch revealed with reasonably rich compost. There is a quarter circle of old shed footings to be taken up too.
Before we try that, a large shrub on the neighbour's side of the fence is within two feet of the pear trunk. As if she'd read my mind, my neighbour said when she saw us working in the garden that she'd like the shrub pruned back hard, away from her lawn.
So today, I 'paid it in circles'.
My neighbour is mother to a 2 week old baby, you see. So to her delight ("I never thought I'd be in a position to have a gardener!"), I went round with shears, pruning saw, compost and green waste sacks, and started on the shrub. For now, I've just taken out the branches and growth in the lower 2 foot (it's over 5 ft high in total), and composted thickly on the soil revealed.
I kept telling my neighbour that this was all for my own benefit, to try to help my old pear tree by feeding that part of the roots, and reducing the competitiveness of the shrub. But she's happy. And I'm happy. And I had the time to do this because of all the help I got in my garden over the weekend.
Simples!
We are trying to save this miserable old tree, as it has been suffering from some kind of blotchy twisting on fruit and leaves for 5 years.
So our next step is to do all we can to help the pear tree roots. E made a great start lifting out the creeping grass, and I have fed the patch revealed with reasonably rich compost. There is a quarter circle of old shed footings to be taken up too.
Before we try that, a large shrub on the neighbour's side of the fence is within two feet of the pear trunk. As if she'd read my mind, my neighbour said when she saw us working in the garden that she'd like the shrub pruned back hard, away from her lawn.
So today, I 'paid it in circles'.
My neighbour is mother to a 2 week old baby, you see. So to her delight ("I never thought I'd be in a position to have a gardener!"), I went round with shears, pruning saw, compost and green waste sacks, and started on the shrub. For now, I've just taken out the branches and growth in the lower 2 foot (it's over 5 ft high in total), and composted thickly on the soil revealed.
I kept telling my neighbour that this was all for my own benefit, to try to help my old pear tree by feeding that part of the roots, and reducing the competitiveness of the shrub. But she's happy. And I'm happy. And I had the time to do this because of all the help I got in my garden over the weekend.
Simples!
