Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Ian Young's Bulb Log - Feedback Forum => Topic started by: David Nicholson on October 17, 2007, 08:15:52 PM
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As usual I enjoyed this weeks Log immensely, some great Crocus shots and the very last picture of the hoverfly pollinating the Crocus is a cracker.
I'm pretty sure had I tried the winching manoeuvre the tree I was using as the fulcrum would have been the one to come crashing down over both greenhouses, and the tree that was supposed to come down would have stayed for posterity. I'm not a lumberjack and I'm OK ;D
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A shame I didn't see the winch trick before I took out 3 large conifers recently - but then I wouldn't have had the fun of seeing my husband struggling with the mattock I thoughtfully bought him when he said sorry he couldn't do the job without one. ;D
Now I've got 6m x 3m of blank space to play with!
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The winch is an invaluable tool in such matters. When we (Ian and I and David Atkinson) took out around twenty or more huge conifers to make Harold Esslemont's last garden, we did it in double quick time using the winch, just a pity it was rainingand we all got so muddy!
Ian made a super tool to remove hedging plants when we joined the two halves of our garden in 1985.
This, named the Youngs Patent Hedge Howker consisted of a lever arm attached to a big v shaped metal end, which was placed close to the base of each plant, in our case eight foot high privet, a rope slung round to tighten, then all attached to a winch nearby, hauled that hedge out in no time at all... I wish now he hadn't later scrapped it, we could have made a fortune renting it out and ,of course, he has not got the facilities to remake the device nowadays.
Yes, there's nothing so satisfying as a bout of extreme pruning! ::)
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David I sleep all night and I work all day so I am a reverse lumber jack and I will not admit to the ladies clothes.
It is important to attach a soft rope to the base of the pulling tree and attach the other end to the top of the tree you are taking out to maximise the leverage.
It is still a lot of hard work but the winch helps expose the tough roots so I can saw them through.
I wish I had found that much space Anne but all I gained was the actual space the bowl of the tree took up because I had bulba planted right up to the trunk.
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Maggi - if we buy the house we are currently keen on I will pay Ian to recreate his hedge howker. The garden has a privet hedge down one side which is about 10 feet high ... all 146 feet of it :-\ :-\ :-\
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Tony, do you plan to replace the private with a different hedge or a fence?
When we had a similar massive private hedge to remove I cut it down with a chainsaw and treated the stumps with a root killer. I put my fence posts in along the line of the old roots and found that I could cultivate right up to it gaining six feet of usable garden. None of the stumps regrew and over the next couple of years I gradually pulled the dead stumps off by hand.
Years later we decided to remove a large tree from our boundary. It needed a tree surgeon to do the cutting on this and then I considered a stump grinder to remove the stump. Very expensive. So I asked a neighbour with a JCB if he could help. Five minutes and it was out - he wouldn't even accept a bottle for his help.
If you can get a JCB or a mini digger in it can save a mountain of work.
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Several more beauties Ian, but I think that Colchicum coustourierii is particularly good. Would you recommend growing it in a larger/deeper pot than the crocuses?
Yes I agree about 'Waterlily' :-X
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Ashley, Colchicum coustourierii seems happy planted in a normal pot and yes a bit deeper than most crocus but I does not seem to require great depth.
I generally plant crocuses so the top of the corm is just below the half way depth of a pot and colchicums are in the bottom 1/3 of the pot.