Bluebell Walk Progress...

One of my pleasing observations of the garden during my trip home last week was the progress of the bluebell walk over the past 5 years. Spring has sprung, the rain has come, the bulbs are out and all the deciduous trees are starting to sprout!

When we first planted up the walk 5 years ago it looked like this:

There were a couple of winters of transplanting the lines of trees, widening the walk, doubling the number of rows of birches, raising some mulched bulb beds and sowing hundreds of bulbs...

Above: Year 2

Below: Year 3



Below: Year 4, End of Winter

Below: Year 4, Summer

Below: Year 5, Early spring

Below: Year 5, Mid Spring (Last Week)

The Kioti...

Along with our Mule, we now have a Kioti...Tractor,with mower and digger. It is just the ticket...

It has an easily attachable/detachable 60" self mulching mowing deck; a fully articulated self-leveling front end loader; and 3 point / PTO couplings at the back for the grader blade, fert spreader, etc.

It is much more maneuverable than our other tractor, so we will be able to mow the orchard now without using the push mower, as well as being able to mow around all the trees without lugging the push mower across the estate.

It will be great in addition to the mule for farm work, as well as shifting large quantities of mulch for the gardens.

They seem well engineered and have good mechanical support in Hamilton, so we shouldn't have any problems. Now we just need to sell the old tractor and mower.

Production Line...

Peter has been busy knocking out wooden squares to go around all our new trees, to hold the mulch and bulbs in. He has got it down to a fine art. We should have plenty of timber left for building the potting shed, and making borders for the Lime Walk and Bluebell Walk. 

We have planted up the second stretch of the driveway with a further 14 Plane Trees, and have been at work mapping out and planting up Badger's Wood. We have also started planting up all our urns and pots with fresh potting mix and spring flowers, and have started preparing a site for our boutique vineyard, which we shall share with you in our next post.

While we have been busy at that, the Dorset Horns have kept giving birth to late lambs. No more Highlands yet. They must be due by the end of this month though.