Gardens

The gardens have really taken over this year, we had a dry and sunny April, but then it rained a great deal during May, June and July. I have 1.7 hectaires of land here (approximately 4 acres) and also lots of it is lawned (4.5 hours of mowing each time) I have planted a large flower garden. The gardens were created in 2004 and on a limited budget I planted a few plants that I bought and lots that I took as cuttings from other people gardens, at first they were really sparse.

This year the gardens have been hard work, everything has really grown and needs serious pruning, which I should have carried out in the winter or spring, but will have to wait until the autumn now. I have spent much more time this year, trying to keep things tidy and trying to get the lawns mown. Of course, there is also the constant battle against the moles, I'll talk about that later!

Here is a picture of the gardens now, I suppose that the most impressive for me is the hedge in the foreground, I took 80 cuttings of a Lonicera nitida about 10cm long, dipped them in potting compost and in three years a fantastic hedge - it does need lots of trimming, but is very easy to manage if you keep on top of it (it does need a trim on top at the moment!).