- Joined
- Sep 17, 2017
- Messages
- 1,663
- Reaction score
- 2,542
- Location
- Huddersfield.
- Hardiness Zone
- 7
- Country
Hi,
Ever since moving into this bungalow 30 years ago I've been working flat out repairing and upgrading it; all during this time I've been absolutely sick of our dire climate with its rain etc but I've always managed to carry on.
Last year I finally caught up and the bungalow was finished to a high standard letting me finally get into the gardens which by now were overgrown and needing lots of work. I was eagerly looking forward to getting out in the fresh air and I've never been scared of hard work; I've kept attacking the gardens each year but now I wanted to do some serious gardening and make the gardens as nice as the bungalow; boy I sure had high hopes.
All last year the rain seldom let up; I worked feeling miserable all the time I was in the garden; the seasons all merged into one as the rain came down and in what was supposed to be our summer I was working wearing heavy coat; hat; wellies and gloves with temperatures in single figures and a prevailing wind constantly buffeting me around; slimy slugs and snails kept me company as I slid around working on the steep garden; gloves were constantly soaking wet as I built retaining walls and the timber I bought to make the new shed with was the heaviest timber I've ever had the misfortune to use it being so wet it could have been stored in a pond for years; as I drove screws home water oozed out of the timber; I received endless soakings; during heavy work the coat kept out the rain and wind but the sweat built up so I was still wet.
I've never been a quitter and having started work in the garden I was going to complete the work whatever was thrown at me; I removed two very long big hedges shredding these between downpours of rain; the hedge at the top of the garden I set about and dug up all the many stumps and roots together with lots of stones and other debris; large areas of grass I turned over as big sods; brambles; masses of English Ivy; lots of mile a minute vine; nettles and bracken all yielded to my efforts; a mature holly tree I felled and shredded then I spent a lot of effort and frustration as I dug up the big stump having to remove a section of garden retaining wall; the wall I rebuilt then I dug a big wedge out of the hillside flagging this to accept the new shed; dozens of self planted oak and holly were removed; four compost bins were bought and four sites levelled to accept these; a new cold frame was made; I installed a shelf in the shed up the garden and sowed lavender seeds; Laurels were trimmed and lots of shredding carried out all the while in terrible conditions.
I've felled and disposed of 80' tall trees and a number of 30' tall trees; the Laurels at the bottom of the garden were 30' tall these are now 3' tall; I did a huge amount of digging by spade and my lovely wife Bron bought me a delightful Hyundai rotavator for Christmas; I bought other gardening kit and I really did give it my all. The first and only time I tried to use the rotavator it bogged down and if this year continues as last year I might as well sell the rotavator.
I'm a guy and can only concentrate on one job at a time I can't multitask and I don't want to try; my engineering training is still very much with me in that I was taught to do one job at a time but to do the job to the very best of my ability. When I finally got into the garden I was concentrating hard and planning the work I wanted to carry out; our climate is terrible and I'm unable to do the jobs I want to do in the garden; I've received so many soakings and recently I've done lots of digging with temperatures hovering just above freezing whilst being blown around by a chilling breeze; this type of gardening is more of a punishment than a pleasure and I'm very unhappy. The rear garden is big but I dare not erect a greenhouse because it would involve lots of groundwork due to the steepness and also local low life would enjoy throwing stones; if this wasn't bad enough the high wind would possibly destroy a greenhouse.
Yes this is a miserable thread but then I'm miserable and fed up of spending days; weeks and months waiting for better weather to arrive; it's snowing a bit here at the moment but if it isn't snow then it will be more rain; I would be happy with ten feet deep snow drifts in winter and accept it but this bad weather here the year round is a real garden spoiler. I planted over 200 daffodil bulbs and the only pleasure so far is seeing these growing but I expect they will be buried in snow shortly.
It's so unlike me to be miserable or depressed but this gardening is getting me down so rather than sit on my backside constantly moaning about it now is the time I cheered myself up; I'm unable to do gardening in comfort so I think I now need to go back to workshop projects and switch off from gardening; in spite of the bad weather last year I carried out a great deal of gardening work but I wasn't happy.
Yesterday I was browsing eBay and Gumtree looking at engineering lathes; a lathe down in Bedford caught my eye and at £1,000 it will be a nice toy; my current lathe a very expensive and rare Lorch Schmidt runs on flat drive belts and I have little tooling for it because of its non standard taper drives; most modern lathes have Morse tapers and tooling is readily available for these; I also have the option of making my own or adapting tooling for the Lorch and I could convert the Lorch to VFD (Inverter) drive; I've tried my best at gardening wanting to adopt gardening as my main hobby for a couple of years but I'm going to revert back to wood/metalworking where this climate can still annoy but can't get at me.
I've no intention of quitting this forum so it's highly likely I'll be boring you all with stories from the workshop with perhaps the odd gardening story weather permitting. Once I get cracking on an interesting project in the workshop the sun will come out and Huddersfield will be plunged into drought conditions. I feel better already; now I need to decide what to do regarding my lathes.
A few pictures below to show my kind of gardening including a bit of rare sunshine as I had to wait for a calm day in order to fell the tree. If I carry on being stubborn working in these gardening conditions I think I deserve pneumonia? I can't even wash the car.
Many thanks for putting up with me and for your patience; much appreciated.
Kind regards, Colin.
Ever since moving into this bungalow 30 years ago I've been working flat out repairing and upgrading it; all during this time I've been absolutely sick of our dire climate with its rain etc but I've always managed to carry on.
Last year I finally caught up and the bungalow was finished to a high standard letting me finally get into the gardens which by now were overgrown and needing lots of work. I was eagerly looking forward to getting out in the fresh air and I've never been scared of hard work; I've kept attacking the gardens each year but now I wanted to do some serious gardening and make the gardens as nice as the bungalow; boy I sure had high hopes.
All last year the rain seldom let up; I worked feeling miserable all the time I was in the garden; the seasons all merged into one as the rain came down and in what was supposed to be our summer I was working wearing heavy coat; hat; wellies and gloves with temperatures in single figures and a prevailing wind constantly buffeting me around; slimy slugs and snails kept me company as I slid around working on the steep garden; gloves were constantly soaking wet as I built retaining walls and the timber I bought to make the new shed with was the heaviest timber I've ever had the misfortune to use it being so wet it could have been stored in a pond for years; as I drove screws home water oozed out of the timber; I received endless soakings; during heavy work the coat kept out the rain and wind but the sweat built up so I was still wet.
I've never been a quitter and having started work in the garden I was going to complete the work whatever was thrown at me; I removed two very long big hedges shredding these between downpours of rain; the hedge at the top of the garden I set about and dug up all the many stumps and roots together with lots of stones and other debris; large areas of grass I turned over as big sods; brambles; masses of English Ivy; lots of mile a minute vine; nettles and bracken all yielded to my efforts; a mature holly tree I felled and shredded then I spent a lot of effort and frustration as I dug up the big stump having to remove a section of garden retaining wall; the wall I rebuilt then I dug a big wedge out of the hillside flagging this to accept the new shed; dozens of self planted oak and holly were removed; four compost bins were bought and four sites levelled to accept these; a new cold frame was made; I installed a shelf in the shed up the garden and sowed lavender seeds; Laurels were trimmed and lots of shredding carried out all the while in terrible conditions.
I've felled and disposed of 80' tall trees and a number of 30' tall trees; the Laurels at the bottom of the garden were 30' tall these are now 3' tall; I did a huge amount of digging by spade and my lovely wife Bron bought me a delightful Hyundai rotavator for Christmas; I bought other gardening kit and I really did give it my all. The first and only time I tried to use the rotavator it bogged down and if this year continues as last year I might as well sell the rotavator.
I'm a guy and can only concentrate on one job at a time I can't multitask and I don't want to try; my engineering training is still very much with me in that I was taught to do one job at a time but to do the job to the very best of my ability. When I finally got into the garden I was concentrating hard and planning the work I wanted to carry out; our climate is terrible and I'm unable to do the jobs I want to do in the garden; I've received so many soakings and recently I've done lots of digging with temperatures hovering just above freezing whilst being blown around by a chilling breeze; this type of gardening is more of a punishment than a pleasure and I'm very unhappy. The rear garden is big but I dare not erect a greenhouse because it would involve lots of groundwork due to the steepness and also local low life would enjoy throwing stones; if this wasn't bad enough the high wind would possibly destroy a greenhouse.
Yes this is a miserable thread but then I'm miserable and fed up of spending days; weeks and months waiting for better weather to arrive; it's snowing a bit here at the moment but if it isn't snow then it will be more rain; I would be happy with ten feet deep snow drifts in winter and accept it but this bad weather here the year round is a real garden spoiler. I planted over 200 daffodil bulbs and the only pleasure so far is seeing these growing but I expect they will be buried in snow shortly.
It's so unlike me to be miserable or depressed but this gardening is getting me down so rather than sit on my backside constantly moaning about it now is the time I cheered myself up; I'm unable to do gardening in comfort so I think I now need to go back to workshop projects and switch off from gardening; in spite of the bad weather last year I carried out a great deal of gardening work but I wasn't happy.
Yesterday I was browsing eBay and Gumtree looking at engineering lathes; a lathe down in Bedford caught my eye and at £1,000 it will be a nice toy; my current lathe a very expensive and rare Lorch Schmidt runs on flat drive belts and I have little tooling for it because of its non standard taper drives; most modern lathes have Morse tapers and tooling is readily available for these; I also have the option of making my own or adapting tooling for the Lorch and I could convert the Lorch to VFD (Inverter) drive; I've tried my best at gardening wanting to adopt gardening as my main hobby for a couple of years but I'm going to revert back to wood/metalworking where this climate can still annoy but can't get at me.
I've no intention of quitting this forum so it's highly likely I'll be boring you all with stories from the workshop with perhaps the odd gardening story weather permitting. Once I get cracking on an interesting project in the workshop the sun will come out and Huddersfield will be plunged into drought conditions. I feel better already; now I need to decide what to do regarding my lathes.
A few pictures below to show my kind of gardening including a bit of rare sunshine as I had to wait for a calm day in order to fell the tree. If I carry on being stubborn working in these gardening conditions I think I deserve pneumonia? I can't even wash the car.
Many thanks for putting up with me and for your patience; much appreciated.
Kind regards, Colin.
The UK weather certainly can be pretty miserable, so you've done well to endure it for so long. Judging by your photos you seem to have a large garden on a very steep slope, it makes my knees ache just looking at it! You need to stop being so hard on yourself - gardens are there to be enjoyed, and if you are not enjoying it then you are doing the right thing by making a change. Would it be possible to get a contractor in for the bigger jobs so that you can enjoy doing the rest? Just a thought. 
