The first couple of decent days of Spring have arrived and so I took the chance to dig out the gnarly old privet hedges that are in the way of the greenhouse, before birds start nesting in there.
Goodness knows how long they have been there. I've already dug one out last spring (to form the space for the willow arch) and it wasn't a heap of fun, but forewarned is forearmed as they say, so at least I know what to expect. I gave myself a day to do it and tried to take it steady rather than my normal approach which is to go at it like a bull and wreck my back for a few days!
There are 2 stumps; one small and one large. I cut all the foliage and small branches off the day before the big attack but left as much of the main trunks on as possible to give me maximum leverage. I was also expecting it to be helpful that there was about a 12" drop across the line of the hedge, so I could undermine on the low side more easily. I have a handily placed holly tree about 10' away to use as a restraint to set up some sort of "winching" arrangement if possible.
The first one came out reasonably easily. I dug about a foot deep hole around the sides and low side and then set up a rope going back to the holly tree a few times. Then I used that as a "Spanish windlass" to gradually pull the stump towards the tree. It eventually gave way, but there was a LOT of tension in the rope! I was very careful where I stood.
The second one took a LOT more effort - there were so many roots to cut out. But I took it slowly with plenty of rests and eventually it saw sense and realised that I wasn't going to stop. Boy it was heavy too. I took as much of the trunk wood off with the chainsaw as I could but it was still a real brute to get out the hole. I had to do a lot of "windlassing"!
I rolled / manhandled it down the hill with a large steel tube I rescued from the undergrowth to join the other stumps. At some point I'll create a "stumpery".
The next fine weather saw the area to be dug out cleared of weeds and I dug up plants that I wanted to keep, moving them temporarily. This included digging out my "Willow Arch" that I planted last year, but which was in the wrong place for what I need to do now!! I'm going to incorporate some trellis and a small pergola and replant them alongside that.
I dug back into the "hillside" by about 6' and moved the soil over to the slope so, as I was cutting back up the garden, I was also "reclaiming" some of the slope where the raised planter will ultimately go.
Countless wheelbarrow loads, several hailstorms and lots of cups of tea later, the bulk of the digging was complete for now. This will give me access to install the sleeper retaining walls.
The following day was dry and sunny and a joy to be out working on the garden project.
The sleeper walls went in fairly seamlessly, although I did have a bit of jiggery-pokery working around a couple of outcrops of humungous chunks of slate. I managed to chip off just enough to get the sleepers in the right position.
With the two walls in and holding the top section of the garden back, I moved on to the next level down. This sleeper is at the level of the greenhouse slab base and as well as supporting the base will form a step down to a path. Very little digging was necessary to get the right level and the post holes were in nice soil for a change! All the posts are in now and ready for concreting as soon as the weather is good again.
Three barrowloads of concrete and a couple of days curing time had everything nice and solid. I built some steps down from the garden level to greenhouse level first, so that I could get safe access for materials. This is the pattern that I'm going to use for all of the steps down the garden. Eventually they will be topped off with slate chippings, but I'm just using crushed stone for now while I'm still doing lots of construction work.
I then set up a screeding rail level with the finished surface of the slabs and that let me make a tamping rail to check the level I needed to dig away; stone backfill level and then to screed off a layer of compacted sand, ready for the slabs.
There then followed too many wheelbarrow trips up and down from the front of the house, bringing all of the crushed stone for the base down. It turned out that my "bulk bag" was just short but another 4 bags finished it off. I haven't gone to town with a huge layer of stone - it's about 2". After all, it's only carrying a greenhouse.
Once the stone was down, I compacted it using a concrete block! Would have been much easier to hire a plate compactor but, in the time it would have taken me to go and collect one, it had been compacted and I'd had a good workout followed by a well deserved rest and cuppa!
Then I started barrowing the sand down and screeded that nice and flat.
With all of the hard prep done, it only took an hour or two to drop the slabs onto the flat sand base and they were pretty much level.
I left 3 slabs out, which is where the planting bed inside the greenhouse will be.
And that's it finished. The stoned area between the base and shed will also be filled with crushed slate eventually.
