Compost: and why the 3-pen system is so important

 "Oh no!" I hear you say: "Not compost, again!!"

Yes! Compost and irrigation, the two watch-words of this year. Both are dear to my heart, as regular readers will know. And today, another word about compost.

Here's the back story:

I set up a lovely 3-pen system for this Client, who has a very large garden which generates a massive amount of material, not least because I am only there every other week, and on those visits, there are two of us - so it's very much feast-and-famine, as far as generating waste goes!

We used to struggle with the composting, because the pens were nowhere near big enough, and there were only two of them:

 ... so, earlier this year, I persuaded the Client to allow us to rip them all apart and build three pens, each double the size of the existing two. Luckily pallets are easily obtainable for free, so we scrounged as many as we could, and used a combination of zip-ties to hold the edges together, and the metal poles from an old heavy-duty gazebo, to hold the pallets in position...

 

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Tools - other than the obvious ones!

I had a question from a Patron the other day ("Hi, Stephen!") about tools: it's obvious that a self-employed gardener will need to have a fork and a spade, secateurs, and a selection of gloves: a couple of small hand tools - I like the Daisy Grubber, as you all know - and of course a plastic tub-trug bucket thing, and so on: but, he asked, what are the less obvious tools, without which I would not work?

Eye Protection

No-one seems to talk about this much, but it's worth a quick word: when working around plants, especially shrubs, you would be well advised to wear eye protection, if you don't already wear spectacles.

I'm sure you've all heard that lovely, callous, phrase “it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick” and I can tell you that getting poked in the eye is painful, and is a regular occurrence when gardening.

I wear cheap, lightweight protective specs:

 

 

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One of these things is not like the others..

Part of the art of being a good professional gardener (is it possible to be a "bad" professional gardener? 

Oh, silly me, of course it is, thinking back to some of the terrible Crimes Against Horticulture I have seen, over the years) is to be able to recognise weeds, and the definition of a weed is - I'm sure you've heard this - merely something growing in the "wrong" place. This includes removing perfectly legitimate plants, which might be popping up in unwanted positions.

Here's a good one - recently, I was dead-heading the climbing rose ("Gertrude Jekyll", very popular and rightly so) on the arch, and at the base, I spotted some leaves which didn't quite look right....

 

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"Climbers don't damage trees"

Oh yes they do!

This is a pet peeve of mine: I really, really hate it when people grow climbers - clematis, roses, honeysuckle etc - up trees.

Yes, I know why they do it: it's vertical gardening, it gets flowers appearing up an otherwise merely green support, it extends the season of interest of the tree in question.

But it leads to conflict: the climber may need to be pruned, which is tricky when it's wrapped around a tree and quite possibly out of reach. And the tree may need attention, which is tricky with a climber wrapped around it.

And, worst of all, the climber might smother the tree, contributing to its decline while also disguising that decline, until it is too late to save the tree.

Here's a classic example, from some years ago:

Beautiful, I know. Mid May, and the Cherry tree - one of a pair - is covered in Clematis blossom.

But, invariably, a couple of years later...

 

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