{"id":3089,"date":"2019-10-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kergudon.com\/https-www-kergudon-com-sunday-6-october-thorny-issue\/"},"modified":"2020-05-12T15:55:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T15:55:49","slug":"sunday-6-october-thorny-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/sunday-6-october-thorny-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday 6 October – Thorny issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

I said, at the end of last week\u2019s blog<\/a>, that autumns have often proven to be productive times for us in getting things done \u2013 and that it was about time we started making progress again.\u00a0 Thankfully, this week we have made more progress than perhaps any previous one since the start of the summer season even with Dave\u2019s parents with us and the changeable weather!<\/p>\n

One entire day was spent taming the wisteria we planted a few years ago in front of Priory.\u00a0 Evidently it likes the position we have chosen for it as it has grown considerably.\u00a0 We always wanted a wisteria as they always look good growing over the front of an old building and are beautiful when fully in flower.<\/p>\n

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Having researched, we saw that there are 2 types of wisteria, Chinese and Japanese, one which twists clockwise and the other anticlockwise.\u00a0 We knew that pretty much all commercially available plants are grated to ensure they flower.\u00a0 Ours came from a local garden centre and we know that it flowers, as it did a bit this year, but it appears to have 2 grafted stems, one twisting clockwise and the other anti-clockwise so, it appears, that we may have got \u2018lucky\u2019 and have one of each!<\/p>\n

This does however make things complex when it comes to training it.\u00a0 Wisteria care I believed was extremely complex and, unless you get it right, the plant either doesn\u2019t grow very happily and \/ or doesn\u2019t flower as profusely as it could.\u00a0 Despite having been given guidance from our keen gardening neighbour, I still don\u2019t really know if I\u2019m doing it right.\u00a0 When I trained the thin leader shoots during the summer most of them died and so didn\u2019t help form the shape I wanted.\u00a0 I left the whole thing until now and it had become a mass of tangled and twisted shoots some of which were extremely long and starting to grow between the slate and under the roof tiles.<\/p>\n

Having spent a long time trying to unwind the shoots carefully and choose the strongest and best placed to extend the frame eventually I became a bit more brutal. \u00a0It has at least now got to a size that I can start to train above the doors. \u00a0\u00a0I only hope that next spring it is fairly forgiving, produces lot flower and continues to grow happily.<\/p>\n

During the damper days of the week I continued to clear out the garage (heard that before have you?) but have managed to empty the end bay furthest from the house.<\/p>\n

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This has made us think again about what to put on the ground.\u00a0 Initially we had planned on a system of sand, plastic (to prevent moisture rising through the floor) and gravel but now we favour a concrete floor.\u00a0 We will do this ourselves but probably not for a couple weeks until we have a dry few days.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When it was, mostly, dry Dave and I also started to clear a(nother) forgotten corner of the garden, this one behind the Stable (which is now watertight again as our roofer did appear last Monday!)<\/p>\n

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The area immediately behind Stable is a little out of sight, out of mind, so we hadn\u2019t done anything to it other than dump branches we cut down a few years ago before we had the ability to cut them up easily or transport them to the d\u00e9chetterie. \u00a0\u00a0As a result the brambles had taken over and were the only things growing there.<\/p>\n

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While it had always been on our list to clear this area, it has now become the focus as we have asked a tree surgeon to come and remove all of the trees on that boundary.\u00a0 Before he can do this he asked us to clear the brambles from underneath.\u00a0 It is always sad losing trees but these are predominantly self-set \"\"<\/a>sycamores (i.e. BIG weeds) which haven\u2019t grown to form a nice shape and, being on top of a talus (stone wall) may not be as well anchored as they could be so vulnerable to a big storm in the future.\u00a0 Taking them out this year removes any risk and ensures we get more light into the garden.\u00a0 We will replace them with other, more interesting tress \u2013 elsewhere!<\/p>\n

Rather than just cut the top of the brambles off, we have begun to dig out as much of the root as possible which, as you can see, has unearthed lots more slate which I can use to build another wall.\u00a0 Removing the roots will help prevent them growing back too quickly and we will also mulch with chippings of the tree branches when they are felled.\u00a0 This may not happen for a few weeks, months potentially but it will be a big change and we will certainly show you in my blogs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Just clearing the bramble off the front wall has made Kergudon visible from that part of Hent Gorreker so, in the spring, we will plant some new hedging and cut back the old buxus and privet which is there which should create a lovely hidden spot behind Stable for a terrace that we will build.\u00a0 Something else to add to the list!<\/p>\n

Finally, I mentioned in the last blog that the commune had plans to resurface Hent Gorreker and they did so this week.\u00a0 It looks pretty good \u2013 let\u2019s see how long that lasts \u2013 and has allowed me to tidy the front access to Stable and use a small amount of the gravel pile on our drive for the first time in a while!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Good momentum gained this week, my fear is that it may be lost again next as the weather looks decidedly iffy!<\/p>\n

Salut.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I said, at the end of last week\u2019s blog, that autumns have often proven to be productive times for us in getting things done \u2013 and that it was about time we started making progress again.\u00a0 Thankfully, this week we have made more progress than perhaps any previous one since the start of the summer…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3099,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ben-and-daves-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kergudon.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}