Today’s guest picture comes from my sister Mary who knows that I like a neat lawn. She found this one near a well known large house.
It was one of those days when it might have rained at any time and there was evidence that it had rained…
…but in the end, it kept reasonably dry until the late afternoon and I was able to wander round the garden after breakfast looking to see what was going on.
There was the familiar: the purple stemmed cow parsley is going from strength to strength…
…and there was the fresh: the nectaroscordum has started to flower.
There was old: the pulsatilla seed heads are having fun…
…and there was new: a fourth geum has joined in with the others…
…and a second astrantia has arrived as well.
There was plenty of bright colour but sadly a rose had come out and been knocked about by a rain shower before I had a chance to get a good shot of it.
There were a good number of bumble bees about…
…and the alliums were on their visiting list.
I like the geometry of the alliums….
…and of the sweet rocket too.
I was still pottering around the garden when a guest arrived for a garden tour and a cup of coffee. Sue has recently come to live in Langholm and while she was searching online for information about the town, she happened upon my blog and has since become a regular reader. It was very nice of her to take the time to come and visit us and Mrs Tootlepedal and I enjoyed a good chat with her.
She lives on the edge of town and has many interesting visitors to her garden. She has invited us up to see woodpeckers, nuthatches and squirrels so I hope to take up her offer soon.
When she left, I mowed the middle lawn and then took some time to watch our own birds. Just the usual suspects were about…
…though I was pleased to see a chaffinch. They are normally our most common visitor but they have almost entirely disappeared from our garden lately for some unknown reason.
After lunch, I went up to the town to keep an appointment but as the person whom I was supposed to meet wasn’t there, I came home again and set to work with Mrs Tootlepedal on some lawn improvement.
The front edge of the middle lawn has lifted up over time and Mrs Tootlepedal wanted it lowered so it looked better and was easier to step off. This involved raising the turfs, removing soil from underneath and replacing the turfs.
A straightforward task which we approached methodically. First cut the turfs…
…then remove them and lay them on the drive in the right order…
…then shoogle and level the soil underneath, removing quite a lot of earth and three buckets of stones…
…before raking the soil flat and putting some compost in…
…and then the turfs that have been removed are sliced to a uniform thinness using a turf box and a knife and replaced in position….
…until it starts to pour with rain and we have to break off and have a cup of tea.
As it was then the tome when my flute pupil Luke came, I left Mrs Tootlepedal replacing the last of the turfs between showers and when Luke left, I helped her to finish off the task. Then we gave the replaced lawn a thorough watering and generally tidied up a bit.
As well as the three buckets of stones, we had removed about two wheelbarrow loads of soil so although it may not look much in the photos, we made quite a difference. Everything will take a few days to settle, but we were very pleased with the result of the afternoon’s work. The lawn will never be bowling green flat but it is much more level than it was.
Luke has been practicing so the lesson went well too.
Tomorrow will tell whether a couple of hours of vigorous bending and stretching was a good idea. At the moment, all is well.
The flying bird of the day is one of our sparrows.
Wow! I am impressed at the lengths you will go to to achieve a neat lawn!
What Mrs T wants, Mrs T gets.
I am impressed. That is very ambitious and looks quite tiring. It never would have occurred to me that one could even do that.
My goodness! I am very impressed by the method and by the amount of stones and soil you managed to remove! I hope your back isn’t too painful after all that. I liked ‘shoogle’, too! A perfect gallery of flowers.
The soil under the grass was as dry and lifeless as dust.
Nice shot of the rain on that waxy hosta leaf.
I know what a lot of work the lawn was but it won’t take long to look as good as new. I hope you’ll both be painless tomorrow.
The view up the lawn and into the garden is beautiful.
We survived the lawn work and in fact it seems to have helped my feet.
Holy mackerel, you two. What a project! I don’t know whether you should be given an award for industry or check to see if you’re running a temperature!
In the end, it was easier than we thought it would be. Working as a team helped.
Shoogle – another delightful word for me to savour!
A very useful word.
Very impressed with the mighty effort on the lawn and loved that picture of the rain drop, good work all round. Look forward to more lawn pictures when it has healed.
Whew! What a splendid effort.
I particularly like the geometry of the allium shot. You wouldn’t like our grass patch – we couldn’t call it a lawn
That is the fashionable way now. I am a dinosaur of the grass desert.
Very impressive lawn work.
We even impressed ourselves by getting it done in one go.
Love the geum colors – your garden is looking quite lovely and now the lawn too!
The geums are a delight to look at through the kitchen window.
Loved all the colours of flowers in the first part of post and the maths of the allium then astonishment at the lawn levelling work. A job well done and no spirit level in sight. Hope your backs are OK!
We did use a spirit level although the result is far from flat. Backs are OK.
Such nice pictures! Also – “she found this lawn next to a well-known large house.” That gave me a good laugh 🙂
She moves in the right circles. 🙂
Awesome bumble bee! Wow, that was a lot of work, kudos!!
It was fun doing it.
Wow! I have to agree with the others, that was a lot of work on the lawn, but I’d say that all the past work has been worth it, as the lawns and gardens have always looked beautiful in your photos.
I never photograph the rough bits of the lawns. 🙂