(Re)Cycling

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Friday 15^th: Instead of stocking up on designer jackets and boots in New York, I’m buying alpines and gravel in Glan Conwy for our next garden project. To be honest, the weather has been so good at home we would have been kicking ourselves if we had gone away.

Above is the next part of the garden we aim to rescue from its current feral state. Although we have now had the cottage for over nine years, we’ve never really tackled this area before, apart from removing the odd beech sapling, so it has been overtaken by scruffy grass, brambles and a huge honeysuckle. We’ve already made a start by removing grass and a bush from the boulder at the front. The natural hollow left will make an ideal basin for one of the Saxifraga we bought that bears blood red flowers. Next task is to remove the brambles and strip off the grass to expose the rock underneath. We’ll then prepare the bed to provide drainage, fill with compost (using home-made compost where possible) and plant the Saxifraga, Helianthemum and Lithodora we bought from the specialist alpine garden centre. Finally, we will top off with the ornamental gravel that should help to conserve moisture and suppress weeds until the plants have established themselves and spread.

Saturday 16^th: Another glorious day, perfect for getting stuck into our new project. Actually, the weather is far too good to stay at home, so we head off to the Mawddach Estuary for a cycle ride instead.

I haven’t been on a bike for over three years, and then it was limited to thirty minutes round the park, twice a week. My reintroduction to cycling was a fifteen mile trek that took us almost three hours, including a picnic break and a well earned drink at the King George at the end of our ride.

P.S. I was just about to throw the croissant packaging into the plastic recycling bin when I realized what a great propagator it would make. Last year I experimented with the plastic trays that soft fruit are delivered in but they were too shallow. This is deep enough for four Finest all butter croissants, i.e. there is plenty of room for developing seedlings. If I was buying it in a shop I would easily expect to pay £1 for it so, depending on which way you look at it, I’ve either acquired a free propagator, or four free, delicious croissants. Isn’t recycling great?

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Tags: alpines, barmouth, croissants, cycling, helianthemum, lithodora, mawddach estuary, recycling, saxifraga