Weeding, Winterizing, Woodchipping

Well folks, yesterday was Sunday the 20th and we trekked up to Highbury Hall where we have our Community Garden. Our aim was simple. to pull the weeds one last time before winter set in, to plant some daffodil bulbs and to cover the entire garden with woodchips which were kindly donated to us by Rob Twyman over at Fernshire Tree Services in Staplehurst (plug plug!).

Here's a few piccies of the great event...

Here's what the border looked like when I got there shortly before 9 am.

A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.  ~Doug Larson

But a weed is simply a plant that wants to grow where people want something else.  In blaming nature, people mistake the culprit.  Weeds are people's idea, not nature's.  ~Author Unknown

Christine doing her back in.

Only halfway along one border, and look at the piles of weeds!

The big mound of woodchips.

What is a weed?  A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Fortune of the Republic, 1878

Insect hotels ready for deployment.

Sue digging the area near the wall for the daffodil bulbs.

Di, Chris and Carolyn making bug hotels.

Laura came and helped out despite having a nasty cold.

Chris folds some ivy stems for the bug hotels.

Ta-daa!

Sue puts in the daffs.

I hung some of the bug hotels from the bird table.

I found some old bricks and stones so I made a stack of them and put in a bug hotel.

There was a ton of woodchips so we spread them behind the hall as far as we could.

You can't really see but the interior of the pile of chips was steaming hot.

A hollyhock plant that seeded itself, probably from some that grow outside some of the neighbouring houses.

The winter pansies are still going strong.

So the garden looks neat and tidy and the woodchips should be deep enough to prevent weeds from coming up too much during the winter months. Hopefully when we get back to it in early 2012 we shouldn't have too much to do.

But make no mistake:  the weeds will win; nature bats last.  ~Robert M. Pyle