Vine Evil

Picture the scene...smouldering wreckage, scattered debris of leaves, branches and stalks but as the mist clears the focus becomes clear. Vine. metres and metres twisted around itself many times over, like the wrought steel of a half demolished building reeling from an incendiary blast.

That has been the task facing me all week. How to clear, when to clear. Particularly with the end of British Summer Time, robbing me of daylight at the work day's end. "Burn It" said the girl who owns the coffee shop. Yet no incinerators in stock at the garden centre, and the garden closely enclosed by houses that despite the cloak of bonfire night it didn't feel like a fair option.

"Fire up the wood chipper" cried @kateginty on Twitter, plotting her own assault on a vine with college comrades. 'Oooo, there's an idea' I thought. But the nature of this vine is such that even then it would need chopping apart to feed in. I took a sneak peak at the hire options, however with christmas fast approaching and no wood chipper to my name I had to take my opportunity in the fresh air and warm sun.

And 3 hours later, it may look not much the same but trust me, I've broken the back off this mountain...

If you peer closely enough, the pile of darker twigs are all the tough stems which even my brand new pair of shears struggled with. These are the real menaces; the ones at the top of the spy chain, calling the shots. Chop these and you stand a chance, but they don't give up without a fight. They have stray vines on them that when you pull them out, lash you in the face, aiming for the eyes but thankfully for me only  my cheeks are marked.

Make no mistake, if you have a big vine to take out it will take all your tactical nous, strength and training in the art of aggressive pruning to take out this enemy. But go without fear and you will give your garden a new lease of life...

Cold war kid

As I write, I'm taking a break from dealing with collateral damage; the clean up from a brutal fight last Friday that was the culmination of a two year stand off.

Upon moving in I was faced with a vine that although lush with white flowers decorated the back wall, it was strangling the mature pear tree and the buddleia that had leant their shoulders on the brickwork. Like a spy befriending these hard working warhorses of the garden, with only one intent - to intimately understand the very workings of the trees and then deny them their existence. Espionage of the highest order.

All the while I watched on, intrigued at this relatively attractive specimen, but suspicious at its insidious young shoots. Still, I let it grow. A kid in the art of cold wars...

So my tactic has been to allow it to be, but keep it trimmed well away from the pear tree. The height of the buddleia meant that it had to fend for itself. For a year or so it seemed to work, but this winter I realised something was up. Faced with what appeared to be a dormant, and therefore vulnerable beast, I took advantage of the lack of distracting leaves to really cut this thing back.

And it was on cutting through the really tough established dark vine that it revealed life within it. Dormant it may be. But it was plotting.

I was doing well this spring, out there most weekends keeping it within its own territory of the wall, or so I thought. Then, bam, it went Cuban! It started not just encroaching but setting up its own base right where I couldn't reach and far too close to the pear tree for comfort. And as you may be aware, my gardening time has been limited this summer and I've struggled to look after simple veg beds let alone handle this fundamental territorial battle.

Then last Friday General Sarah Coombes came in. No Dove she. Landscape architect with the skills and tactical knowledge to handle this formidable foe. Not so much Shock and Awe but Go Nuclear. And so we hit the red button.

The buddleia took the biggest hit, and all that remains are remnants of a once proud flower nation. But tough in character we left it healthy at the base and are confident it will return happy and healthy, even if it will take time to reach its former glory.

In the meantime the clear up operation continues at a pace. Hampered by a landlocked garden there is no side alley to take the waste straight through to the car. So saw, shears and secateurs in hand I've been gradually filling the heavy duty bags ready to take to the garden waste tip. But this truely is a mammoth task. And I've already filled 12 bags...

So, whilst I crack on I'll let another creative outcome of the Cold War entertain you

Everything happens for a season

It's the heart of Autumn in Bristol. I love autumn and when I felt bold enough to share my feelings on the matter they revolved around how it offered a time to reflect in the calm after the summer growth storm, whilst you bask in the golden hues reflecting on the last of the ripening apples...

So yesterday afternoon my good friend Sarah came over for lunch. On the table were said apples to accompany good soup, bread and cheeses. Sarah is a landscape architect and before lunch had concocted a plan to encourage me to do a spot of pruning. This came about purely by chance having taken her out to help identify one of my shrubs. The shrubs do admittedly need a bit of a trim, their locks flowing uncontrollably in the winds of the south west.

And so we sat down for lunch and lined our stomachs for what I imagined would be gentle afternoon's chopping of unruly stems and wayward branches. My body was recovering from a rather late night too so, y'know, nothing a spot of handiwork in the fresh air couldn't help resolve.

Except before you ever embark on anything with a landscape architect, make sure you read that obscure title of 'The Oxford Landscape Architect's dictionary', no doubt available at all good garden centres? No? Well it bloody well should be. Because if it was then I would have had a chance to discover that the definition of 'pruning' is something along the lines of:

'the act of taking a hacking saw to all 5 trunks of the 12 ft buddleia forcibly detatching it from the rampant Russian vine that has weaved its way through every branch, whilst simultanously ripping the vine, complete with rotting trellis away from the back wall, and then piling it all on the 'lawn' whilst considering how to remove the waste over the next two days carrying it through the flat, the communal hallway and into the car without making any mess whatsoever'

Yes, where the amateur gardener tinkers about at the edges, the pro gets stuck in. Luckily for me Sarah was more than happy to charge in with the saw as we set about dealing with the heart of the problem in my garden - the evil Russian Vine. More on that another time as the point of this post is that by encouraging me to tackle the problem whole heartedly, despite creating more work for me in the garden, Sarah has opened up a whole world of potential and excitement.

Gone is the dark canopy of branches and vines that had put the garden into shadow and sterilised half the growing beds. The solid, if not particularly striking wall at the back provides structure and a chance to draw my eyes to happily through the garden.



In there I'm sure is a lesson for life. If something is taking over, darkening your world and you either ignore it, fear it or play around at the edges trying to keep it in control then what is the best you can hope for? If you're bold, however, then the rewards will be handsome.

Yesterday we were bold and all of a sudden, the winter season is filled with the promise of excitement as I can take time to explore just what to do with all this new found space, light and soil. Just the small matter of clearing the carnage...