overgrown the front area, court yard.

[Pun]

Yesterday I told you about the orchard, well its looking better than it has for years and in the winter Ive two trees to prune (I ran out of time and only gave them a very light prune) and to give all the trees a winter wash to help remove any bugs that want to live there rent free,and then apply a grease band, this helps stop crawly bugs climbing up the tree, it act as a trap and the bugs get stuck and we hope die.

But this next project is the front of the house and whats the best plan to use for its use,

Our house has a lane that runs past our drive up to the larger opening in front of the house, This area again has been left to nature for years and apart from grass and weeds we have the curse of sheep wired fencing /barb wire some under the earth and the rest just hanging on to half rotted post, in the middle of this piece of land is the water well,

We,ve decided that having to use this area more than any other part of the house we dont want a grass area due to the fact we,d have to drive over it every time we took the car out of the barn and with two dogs we  didnt want any mud ect in the house or a bog outside the front door,

So we decided to make a court yard using stone chippings and membrane of heavy duty plastic

The tools needed for this project was a wheel barrow, garden rake/ fork/ and a shovel a wide shovel and a couple of rocks to hold the plastic down.

We cleared all the fencing away and all the brambles and grass ect to ground level, and then the roots taken out by a good dig/prayer/curse

but we got there in the end, We planted laurel as a border and intend to take the stone chippings up to the stems.

STORES

we ordered 28 ton of stone chippings @ 17 eur per ton

1 roll of  Heavy duty plastic "the sort the farmers cover the bales of hey with, france rural 80x100 mtrs @90eurs

Now the start of the laying of the plastic, lay the plastic down and ensure you over cover the edges," its far better to have to much rather to little plastic,

make sure you do this work on as wind free day as possible , once the first sheet is down take the garden FORK and evey three paces stab the fork into the membrane continue to cover the sheet in this way, you are now making the drainage for your rain water etc to escape and not cause a puddle effect.

having completed the drainage we now can get very excited and start to fill the wheel barrow with the stones and start to tip in the farthest corner of your prepered plastic covering, by starting in the farthest corner as you continue to work towards your huge pile of stones you,ll feel your making head way

continue this exciting task until you,ve almost covered the first plastic membrane, "make sure you leave enough plastic edge to take a good covering of the next piece of plastic" you dont want to give weeds any day light as this will encourage them to try and grow. I used my rake and spread the stones so they were about 3 to 4 inch thick

two reasons for this (1) a good thick bed of stones slows vehicles down and as this will be a gite in two years time, kids and speed dont mix.

(2) the stones move as you drive or walk on them and after all this exciting spreading of 28 ton of stones you never want to see plastic again.

Once you,ve cut/layed the membrane and spread the stones you,ll have that feeling like a first born baby," Never Ever Again"

But because of the membrane and the now much larger and neater looking court-yard you will have made a well worth job worth doing,

all thats left now is to trim the edges, "in my case I took the plastic up to the stems of the laurel  and I made small dry stone walls and for decoration Ive an old window cleaners ladder barrow full of geraniums,

Ive good entrance to our barn/garage a nice crisp looking court yard, with a few solar lights here and there, not to many,

and  it wont want a lot of time spending ref maintenance

our court yard area is 60x90feet approx (we,ve a small wood store in this area)

TO MORROW FITTING DOUBLE GATES THE SAFE AND SIMPLE WAY.

 

 

[Rob Roy]

When are we going to see some pictures of all this hard work - you should put everything on a blog so we can all see it. I'm sure there are plenty of gardeners who would find it really interesting and informative.

[Pun]

Hi rob,,

Ive not long been using the P.c and Ive tried the camera part but the mem/isnt to good and it took ages to send one photo to the u.k.

 so we need some charger to go with it,But dont worry all will be on the web when we,re ready for the gite let,

thanks for your reply

Good gardening

[candide]

Where did you get the stone chippings from?

[Pun]

hELLO CANDIDE,

We bought the stone chippings from a company called R.MELIN, and they have outlets all over this dep 23 ours was in AIGURANDE but there,s a depot in La Chatre, plus verious builders yards have them or get hold of yellow pages and you may have a quarry near to you.

hope this helps