What a beautiful day we've had here in Northern Brittany - a typical autumnal day - but not particularly cold, light sunshine and a breeze - ideal for getting many of the jobs desperately needing to be done somewhere near complete!
Many of the perennial plants were needing to be cut back - such as the large areas planted with Helianthus and Echinops - the best way that I've found is by taking some hedge trimmers to the base of the stems - when they're dry it's easy work and amazing how quickly you can get through them. It's a lot quicker and a neater job is done than when using a pair of shears. I've also done this when clearing patches of brambles - trim back an area and then pull the ones you've trimmed back with a spring-tined rake and attack the next bit until the patch is cut and by that time all the brambles will be in a neat ball to place in your wheel barrow and off to the bonfire heap - no horrible lengths of bramble to claw into your legs and arms and a much less of a painful way of removing these horrors! All said and done I don't ever remove them all as the fruit is delicious to eat and provide much needed food for garden birds and visiting wildlife.
After a hard day's work I took a few more pictures of our garden to share with you.
What a beautiful day we've had here in Northern Brittany - a typical autumnal day - but not particularly cold, light sunshine and a breeze - ideal for getting many of the jobs desperately needing to be done somewhere near complete!
Many of the perennial plants were needing to be cut back - such as the large areas planted with Helianthus and Echinops - the best way that I've found is by taking some hedge trimmers to the base of the stems - when they're dry it's easy work and amazing how quickly you can get through them. It's a lot quicker and a neater job is done than when using a pair of shears. I've also done this when clearing patches of brambles - trim back an area and then pull the ones you've trimmed back with a spring-tined rake and attack the next bit until the patch is cut and by that time all the brambles will be in a neat ball to place in your wheel barrow and off to the bonfire heap - no horrible lengths of bramble to claw into your legs and arms and a much less of a painful way of removing these horrors! All said and done I don't ever remove them all as the fruit is delicious to eat and provide much needed food for garden birds and visiting wildlife.
After a hard day's work I took a few more pictures of our garden to share with you.
Hi Miranda, hope all's well. Just catching up with blogs after being away, and good to see these autumnal postings from over the Mare. Love the shape of the Maple.
ReplyDeleteHiya BR - thanks for your visit - I've been very busy this last month and haven't visited any blogs for ages... as the nights start to draw in here and weather keeps me away from my gardening work I may hopefully get a bit more time for this- I miss seeing what's happening everywhere! Hope all's going well with you - Miranda
ReplyDeleteHi Miranda. You for sure have a great garden, and the pictures in your blog is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting Signe - glad you liked my blog and my pictures too - Brittany is a beautiful place!
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