Peacocks: Post 6 - Improving the garden

The show must go on. Well, with the peacocks having escaped I now felt a bit silly. Silly for letting them out. Silly for having built an aviary in the back garden with nothing in it!

The back yard was still in a sorry state as it had been winter and too wet and nasty for doing any work. So things sat for a couple of months through February and March whilst I reflected on the mishaps and also thought about how to improve the yard.

Ground up.

The bamboo border was beginning to establish and grow in April 2024. The weather was improving. So I decided to improve the ground whilst it was currently so barren and full of stones. The "soil" is basically clay. Massive lumps of it. With 4 inches of 20mm "decorative" stone on top. Well that's what it had been at one time, but with the felling of the tree and the various other things it was now just a churned up mud patch.

I decided the most pragmatic thing to do was to try to improve the ground by adding vegetation or organic material and then churn up all the clay, stones, buried logs and and branches and wood chippings from felling the massive tree in to one big mix.

Tonnes of grass cuttings.

I started collecting as much grass cuttings as I could in order to mix into the soil to improve it. I waited until the council mowers had been out and then swept up after them, filling the tonne-bags I had with the grass clippings and doing this a good number of times.

Covering the garden with as much grass cuttings as i could.

I did this until I was able to cover the entire back yard with about 6 inches depth of grass cuttings. The cats helped me with inspecting it all.

I could begin to imagine the yard with a green lawn.

Wood chippings galore.

There were three remaining Leylandi trees which I wanted to get rid of. I wanted to replace these with bamboo screening. But I could also chip them up and the wood chippings could be mixed into the clay soil that I was trying to improve. So I made a start and cut down the canopy and the main branches using a hand saw. The three trees had trunks about 8 inch diameter and I figured my best bet for removing the stumps and roots would be to lever them out using their own trunks as leverage.

The three conifers gone and the bamboo ready to be planted.

My son helped me with the work. We hired a mini-digger and chipper for the weekend. We chipped up the conifer canopy and any branches that weren't too big for the machine.

12 Apr 2024: Chipping up the felled conifers to add into the soil.

We spread the chippings out and got to work churning up the soil in a methodical pattern to try to work around the garden and mix up the stones, grass cuttings, tree chippings and clay soil.

12 Apr 2024: Mini-digger small enough to manoeuvre around the garden.

12 Apr 2024: Spreading out the chippings prior to mixing.

Cheap labour.

12 Apr 2024: The new improved soil, churned and levelled to a flatter more even grade.

12 Apr 2024: The final finished flatter garden with improved soil ready for sowing the grass seed.

Reaping what we sowed.

Within no time the garden was looking so much prettier. With the massive tree gone, and the original hedges removed, the amount of sunlight reaching the garden was so much more. The grass seemed to be flourishing and the cats were loving it as much as me.

New grass in the side garden meets the old grass of the front lawn.