Shed - razed to the ground, but good news - temporary access to next door's pool
Charred greenhouse July 2011
The new shed and greenhouse are now in place (and far tidier than the old ones), the fence is replaced (darn it) the new trampoline has finally been built, with the assistance of four very excited children, and it just remains to move the compost (complete with composted ashes of half of the old shed) from the old, burnt-out and collapsing pallet-based composters where it previously resided, into the fabulous new whizzy purpose built composter. This is quite a task. There is a lot of compost. And last year, during the months of no tools (burnt to a cinder in the shed) that pernicious git Bindweed got properly established IN MY COMPOST HEAP!!!
If you're lucky enough not to be plagued by bindweed, I envy you fully and to the point of tears. I hate the stuff. It is known in our house, and to the glee of both daughters, as The Devil's Guts. I know I'm a frightful heathen (although fully-respectful-of-other-peoples'-religious-beliefs-within-reason-natch) but I'm not responsible for naming it that - it's an old country name. It IS, however, a horribly appropriate name, and it has therefore stuck.
You may, of a summer's morn, have stepped out jauntily for a quick pre- or post- breakfast jaunt, with or without a canine companion gambolling at your knee, and have spotted a swirl of bindweed, curling its way up a post, hedge, dead tree or other suitable support. "Why, how pretty it is!" you may have thought to yourself, "with its heart-shaped leaves and pretty white trumpets of flowers - what a veritable delight to behold this fine day." No, dear reader. No. It makes me weep to disabuse you of your charming misconception (assuming you are not already aware of the ghastly strangling invasive nature of this particular garden git), but I beg you, next time you see it, to firmly grasp the plant somewhere near the bottom, or the top, the middle or wherever you can reach, to pull up as much of it, including roots, as you can get your hands on, to strew its remains on a hard path and stamp merrily upon them with strains of "Riverdance" playing in your head. Even if the blessed plant is growing on private land, there is not a householder in the country who would not emerge gratefully from behind their twitching curtains, shake you heartily by the hand, and congratulate you upon your brave actions. You may possibly even be offered cake. It is no exaggeration to state that there are documented cases of keen gardeners actually moving to escape their bindweed.
Meanwhile, back in my garden.
The moving of the compost from its current ghastly collapsing heap (let us, for the sake of it, call it Uriah)...
Uriah (note new fence in background)
...to the beautiful new arrangement...
PROPER job (note Hairy's tail in foreground)
...has inevitably been delayed by the necessity of removing all traces of bindweed from it. Uriah is positively riddled with the stuff, and it would be foolhardy in the extreme to simply transfer the compost, complete with bindweed, to the new bin, and thenceforth scatter it with gay abandon all over my beloved vegetable patch. Gardening suicide, honestly, my loves.
So yesterday saw me, crouched - nay, hunched - in front of Uriah, grubbing through the compost with my gloved hands, tablespoonsworth by tablespoonsworth, removing root after root after root of bindweed.
The Devil's Guts are hardy and fast growing, but incredibly brittle. While this may sound a good thing in theory, in practise it means that when you tug them, they break. So if you pull a bit of root and break it, you have to go digging and grubbing and prospecting for the rest. Because bindweed (the very typing of the word makes me gnash my teeth, stamp my feet and shake my fists) can propagate itself from a mere inch of root left in the soil. Indeed, some gardeners claim that you don't even need to leave so much as an inch. It can propagate itself out of thin air - or rather, out of any soil where it has ever been present.
The one good thing to be said for it is that the roots are very white and show up nicely against the soil, making it easy to find them (with patience and a bit of sifting). I think it's fair to say that I got a good 50 feet of the stuff. Some of it came up by the joyful yard (about two bits, if I'm honest). The vast majority, however, came away inch by hard-won inch.
I've had a bloody good go at it, though. It'll come back, I know it will, but maybe it'll take a few extra weeks before it swamps everything. And now, I'm going to burn the b*****d.Hats off to it for survival and everything, but I do wish it would just wither off and die.
Having fully mined the depths of my rage against the weed, I now realise that the other pernicious gits du jardin are as nothing compared with The Devil's Guts. I would, however, like to warn you at this point and briefly against two trees which you may be considering putting in your garden.
First. The basic willow. Don't do it. Yes, it grows quickly and and provides good cover from overlooking properties, but it will also spend the summer dropping furry seeds all over your garden - no, really, ALL OVER your garden, and those of your neighbours. It's like living in a world of clouds and candyfloss (not in a good way) for a month or more as the stuff drifts in through open windows and doors, coating everything in sight with its hideous fuzz. It will catch in your hair, stick in your socks, and play havoc with your keyboard. And it proliferates.
Second. While we're on the subject of proliferating. The Stags Horn. It looks pretty. It makes a lovely shaped tree reaching only a couple of metres in height. It has very attractive foliage, delightful fuzzy bark like young antlers and flame red seed heads which provide a lovely show throughout the winter months. NO. Do not be tempted. These same seed heads house some of the most efficient tree seeds known to mankind. Within seconds of them appearing, new Stags Horn trees will start pushing their way up through your lawn, your flower beds, in your rockeries - you name it. You will have a forest in no time. I'm not exaggerating. Each stick in the picture on the right is a whole sapling. These were pulled up by my lovely husband yesterday.
Just a few of the ones wot got away.
Finally, the Poplar. It's a noble looking tree, and some Poplars have lovely green, pink and white variegated foliage. Ours does. It will grow up and stand proud, as you admire it's strength and beauty. Meanwhile, under your feet, it is sending out roots and suckers, and before you know it, new Poplars will be popping up in places where you don't want them, where you never dreamt of having them, and where no decent, honest tree has any business to be. You will call in a tree surgeon in desperation, who will suck his teeth and inform you that disturbing the Host Poplar in anyway, such as cutting it back or trying to kill off some of the larger suckers, is likely to have the unPoplar result of making The Host believe its existence is threatened (which it is, to be fair) and sending it into a frenzy of productivity resulting in ever more Poplars. It is best left alone. Doing as it pleases. Creating its own little forest of Poplars.
What with vigorous ornamental grasses, teasels, old man's beard, chickweed, ground elder, stickyweed and dandelions, to name but a few of the others, whatever's a girl to DO?!
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