excellence - LJN Blog Posts - Landscape Juice Network2024-03-28T15:38:49Zhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/excellenceThe Belfry Chooses SISIS for Continued Excellencehttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/the-belfry-chooses-sisis-for-continued-excellence2014-05-15T10:50:46.000Z2014-05-15T10:50:46.000ZFusion Mediahttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profil/FusionMedia<div><p>Angus Macleod, Course Manager at The Belfry, has selected SISIS Megaslit and Multislit tractor mounted deep slitters for maintaining the greens surrounds, approaches and fairways on all three world renowned courses.</p><p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314219832?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="350" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314219832?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"/></a>Whilst Angus has only worked at the Belfry for two years, it was his experience of working with SISIS for over 30 years that prompted the purchase of the new turf maintenance machinery.</p><p>After consultation with head greenkeeper Jamie Brooks and workshop manager Chris Minton, followed by a demonstration, the decision was made to add the two SISIS machines to the extensive turf maintenance fleet of over 200 machines that look after the manicured PGA courses.</p><p>“I’ve used SISIS equipment at all of the courses I’ve worked at for the past 30 years,” said Angus. The Megaslit and Multislit are great pieces of kit and both do a great job. They are efficient, quick and work in tandem with the other piece of aeration equipment we use. Because of the volume of land we have here, we needed something that would do a good job and do it quickly. Both machines immediately ticked all of our boxes giving us a clean slitting motion for quick root pruning, slicing the fibre and controlling thatch.”</p><p>Aeration is crucial for improving drainage, reducing turf compaction, thatch build up and increasing the health of the grass.</p><p>The SISIS Megaslit is a tractor mounted deep slitting aerator which gives a deep, clean penetration and is ideal for larger areas, such as sportsfields and golf fairways. The 2.5m wide deep slitter, featuring 32 heavy duty tines, achieves maximum underground cultivation due to the angle of the tines and spiral design of the tine shaft assists penetration.</p><p>The smaller 1.5m wide SISIS Multislit is also a tractor mounted deep slitting aerator which is suitable for the maintenance of football, rugby, cricket pitches and golf courses. The slitter, featuring 40 sharpened fine turf tines, can be used on a compact tractor, minimising the overall weight on the surface.</p><p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314223923?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="350" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314223923?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-left"/></a>The simple design of both machines means that very little on-going maintenance is required - another key factor in the purchase, as Chris explains: “Nothing has ever gone wrong with the machines; that’s why I like them so much. They are simple to use and basic to maintain - we only ever need to grease the rollers. You can fit them on a lighter weight tractor as long as they can pick it up and it’s an easy operation to carry out.”</p><p>Both machines were put straight into work and will predominantly be used during the winter months. “We will use the machines from November through to January,” explained Angus. We use them from 2 inches right up to 10 inches – as long as we don’t have any issues with wiring or irrigation pipes and they give us very little surface disturbance.</p><p>“We see slitting as an important operation at The Belfry and these machines are great because you can vary the depth for thatch control and root pruning. They’ve proven their worth at the last four golf courses I have been at so why change something if it works so well?”</p><p>For further information or a no obligation demonstration, please contact SISIS on 01332 824 777 or visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.sisis.com">www.sisis.com</a></p><p>For more news, reviews and insightful views, you can follow SISIS on Twitter @SISISMachinery and like the company’s Facebook page – <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.facebook.com/SISISMachinery">www.facebook.com/SISISMachinery</a>. You can also view the latest SISIS videos by visiting <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.youtube.com/SISISMachinery">www.youtube.com/SISISMachinery</a>.</p></div>Propagating plants by green and semi-ripe cuttingshttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/propagating-plants-by-green2009-07-22T20:09:26.000Z2009-07-22T20:09:26.000ZAndrew Feredayhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profil/AndrewFereday<div>Well, today I posted on my facebook page that I was really pleased how well my salvia and lavender cuttings are doing. I only took them about 3 weeks ago and have already started potting some of them on. Phil asked if there was any chance I could cobble a blog together on how to take cuttings, so in my best Blue-Peter style, here we go...I should explain first that I'm by no means up to scratch when it comes to professional nursery standards, but taking cuttings is a really basic form of propagation and one that any gardener can try. Propagating plants can be one of the most rewarding things to do in the garden taking cuttings is one of the easiest ways to propagate plants from your garden. They used to say that my grandmother was such an expert at taking cuttings that she could get a pencil to root, but you don't need to be especially green-fingered to give it a go. If you take a little bit of time, you can produce enough new plants to fill out your own borders and still have a few left over to pass on to neighbours and family.Before we start hacking away at our cherished plants, I'll begin by talking about compost. When you're taking cuttings, you're trying to create good conditions for part of a plant to make roots where it wouldn't usually need to make them. The cutting will need a good compost which will provide the right conditions to make roots. That means that it needs to have a reasonably open texture for the roots to grow but have enough organic matter to retain moisture once the roots begin to develop. I try to use a mix of about 50/50 general purpose compost to sharp sand, and have found this to be a reasonably balanced mix.When it comes to containers for cuttings, you'll need to use something which is suitable for the type of cutting. When I'm taking small cuttings, of lavender or woody varieties of salvia for example, I tend to use the small 'plug' seed trays as they're really easy to handle and once the cuttings have taken you can pot them on with relatively little root disturbance. Don't compress the compost too much as you want it to be quite an open texture - all you need to do is lift the pot or cell tray up an gently tap it down on the work surface to settle the compost. The picture below shows a plug cell tray which I have cut in half and which will take 20 cuttings:<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314129444?profile=original" alt="" width="448" height="336"/></p>So, we've got our cuttings compost ready so we'll look at taking a cutting of a lavender plant. What you're looking for is a lateral shoot (that's one which is coming off a main stem) to cut. In the two pictures below, you can see the lavender plant and a closer shot of the lateral shoot which I'm going to cut. What you're looking for here is to take a young shoot which hasn't developed flower heads yet. If it's too old and woody, it will take longer to root but a shoot that's too young won't have developed enough to be capable of withstanding the shock of being cut. On this plant I've found a shoot which should be fine for cutting, down on the left hand side of the plant towards the bottom.The 'parent' plant:<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314128624?profile=original" alt="" width="336" height="448"/></p>And the cutting which I'm going to take:<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314128696?profile=original" alt="" width="448" height="336"/></p>When you've found a shoot which you're happy with, you'll need to make the cut. There's absolutely no mystery about this, all you need to do is cut the stem of the lateral just above a pair of leaves:<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314129042?profile=original" alt="" width="448" height="336"/></p>This should produce a cutting with a few leaves and a very short length of stem:<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314130792?profile=original" alt="" width="448" height="336"/></p>Once you've got this far, you'll need to take a few of those bottom leaves off. This will give the stem of the cutting enough depth to make it stable while still giving enough leaf area to absorb water while the roots develop. The cutting should look something like this:<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314130661?profile=original" alt="" width="448" height="336"/></p>And now the cutting is ready to go into the prepared compost.When you've filled up as many cuttings as you are going to take, water them in well making sure the leaves are well soaked. Put the cell tray in a small propagator with the lid on and the air vents (if there are any) closed. Thiss will provide a warm and moist environment for the cuttings while they try to make roots. Put the propagator in a warm (but not very hot) place in good sunlight but try to avoid strong direct sunlight if at all possible - this will heat the propagator too much and cause the cuttings to lose water. Check on the cuttings a couple of times a day and make shure they are regularly watered or misted, making sure to wet both the leaves and the compost. Avoid having the compost sitting in a tray of water as this can cause the cuttings to rot.The chances are that you'll lose a few of the cuttings, but if you take more cuttings than you need, enough of them will survive and you'll have a few left over to grow on and give away.</div>What is a Gardener?https://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/what-is-a-gardener2009-05-18T19:35:07.000Z2009-05-18T19:35:07.000ZAndrew Feredayhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profil/AndrewFereday<div>What is a Gardener?While listening to GQT a couple of weeks ago, a question popped into my head which I couldn't answer: What is a gardener? We all think that we know what a gardener is but at that moment I couldn't give a good enough definition. Is a gardener a nurseryman? Sometimes. Is a gardener a landscaper? Sometimes. Is a gardener a designer? Sometimes. Is a gardener a labourer? Sometimes. Is a gardener a greenkeeper? Again, the answer is sometimes. None of this helps so I'd like to try to come do an adequate definition of what a gardener is.The definition of a gardener from <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gardener">thefreedictionary.com</a> is:One who works in or tends a garden for pleasure or hire.This definition seems to be quite good at first but when we consider that this definition includes all the different roles already mentioned in my introductory paragraph (Nurseryman, Landscaper, Designer, Labourer and Greenkeeper), we see that it becomes less useful. All of these roles are legitimate careers in themselves and a gardener is sometimes expected to fulfil all of them, sometimes in the same day.In one of the gardens in which I work, I have carried out the following roles / tasks:Dry Stone WallingPond building / repairLawnmowing & lawn edging, general lawncareVegetable Growing & fruit plantingSoil improvingShrub, tree & perennial pruningBorder redesign & replantingWeeding - perennial weeds, annual weeds & pernicious weeds such as bindweedHedge cuttingCompost making & general waste management (shredding some waste, burning other waste)Propagation of (mainly perennial) plants from cuttings, seed & division.The list is not exhaustive but demonstrates the variety of tasks which fall under the gardening umbrella. Some of these tasks I have also sub-contracted on occasion, where it is easier and more cost-effective to have a specialist handle the job, e.g. seasonal routine lawn maintenance (feeding / weeding / mosskilling / aeration / scarification).In addition to all of these roles, I have the specific admin roles associated with running a small business - filing receipts and doing tax returns, sending out invoices, chasing payments and so on and so on. While these are a necessary part of running a gardening business, they are not explicitly involved in working in a garden so I will not try to include these in a definition.So what I am looking for in a definition of a gardener is something which includes all of these roles but still allows for the sub-contraction of some of the specialist roles. This way of defining a gardener excludes the specialists or those who concentrate on only one aspect of gardening. The definition needs to include all types of gardener; those who work in open or public gardens, large stately and historical gardens, and domestic gardens should be included in the definition, as well as those who work in their own gardens for pleasure (the 'keen amateur').Anyone who has ever worked in a garden, either their own or someone else's, will know that gardening is so much more than a list of individual separate and unrelated tasks. If we put all of the individual gardening tasks into the wider context of maintaining a garden, we can see them as steps or stages in the management of the garden as a whole; I believe this contextualisation of separate tasks into the overall management of a garden to be key to the definition of a gardener. So the definition of a gardener which I am proposing is as follows:<b>Gardener: One who is involved in the overall programme of management of a garden, for pleasure or hire.</b>In this definition, the gardener becomes an integrated part of the management of the garden, undertaking a variety of roles in the context of the garden's management. Furthermore, this definition allows for gardeners to be described as artists as the individual management style of the gardener will inform the final style of the garden. Just as the original definition from thefreedictionary.com made no reference to the style of gardening carried out in the garden, neither does this definition. The arguments for and against the gardener as an artist is a separate discussion which I will not attempt to address here. I'd like to try to address the subject of the gardener as an artist in another blog which I'll scribble together soon.</div>Vegetable Trials in a Small Garden: August Updatehttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/6660693_BlogPost_239422008-08-02T08:00:00.000Z2008-08-02T08:00:00.000ZAndrew Feredayhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profil/AndrewFereday<div>It has been quite a while since I have blogged anything at all so I'm going to grab a little time and write an update on how things are going with the vegetable & herb growing. My thanks to Bella for enquiring how things were growing and spurring me into blogging again! So where to begin?Back to the runner beans I suppose. They have been very good and well worth growing with lots of beans, mostly healthy. I must say that the mangetout and sugar snaps have been less generous. The mangetout in particular, although they looked very promising, didn't really perform all that well. The leaves ended up drying out and yellowing, even though they were being watered well and were in an adequately large pot. I have pulled the plants up and replaced them with some of the french beans (a dark purple variety called 'Blauhilde') which Cat and I have grown from seed. Apart from a few issues with slugs and caterpillars, these seem to be doing OK; no flowers on them yet but at least they are growing reasonably well. We don't have any problem with the sugar snap peas and the plants have been healthy enough. They don't seem to be giving an awful lot of fruit though and I think this is a result of growing so few plants - we only have three or four in a planter on a wall. Given the space needed to grow enough to be worthwhile, I think we will probably leave them off the menu next year.I am so chuffed with my tomatoes this year. It's the first year that I have grown any and these were generously donated by one of my gardening clients who grows a lot of fruit and vegetables, all from seed. I've not pinched out the side stems on any of the plants as I didn't want them to get very tall, preferring them to be bushy. We have about four trusses already beginning to set fruit with lots more flower trusses still coming out. I've been feeding them sporadically with liquid tomato food, to complement the fish blood & bone which was mixed in with the compost when they were planted out. I think the position is the most important contributing factor to them doing so well - they are planted in a large plastic trug which sits on a south-facing cast iron bench. They get a lot of afternoon sun and the bench must heat the trug's compost from underneath, helping them to grow very well. I hope I'll be able to find time to blog when the fruit actually ripen and let you know how they are going.Most of the salad leaves have now been eaten and I've had to empty the pots out and re-sow with fresh seed. With the weather being much warmer now, eveything germinates so much quicker than it did earlier in Spring. I'm going to try to keep growing the salad leaves for as long as I can. Or as long as it's worth my effort anyway! I think that Cat and I have only bought maybe three bags of salad from the supermarket since April. Usually we would have bought about two or three bags of salad a week and ended up having to throw a third of that out as it went past its best. We actually used up the last of the rocket yesterday in a rocket & parmesan risotto, so I'll be sowing some more this weekend. (Apropos of recipes, you could do much worse than finding a copy of the Italian cooking bible, 'The Silver Spoon' - it has receipes for absolutely everything and great for that unusual bunch of vegetables bought from the farmers market which you have no idea what to do with!).The last thing to mention is the fruit growing. We were given a couple of blueberry bushes from my father & step-mother last year, to go with the one that we already had. There has been so much fruit on them that we're both delighted; indeed, Cat is now thinking of taking on a quarter allotment (sharing a half-allotment with our neighbour) to grow blueberries. She remembers going blueberry picking in the States, filling galvanised buckets full of the fruit to take home and make blueberry pies. I'm really surprised that we don't seem to have had much fruit, if any, stolen by the birds this year. I wasn't expecting any of the fruit to stay on the bushes long enough for us to pick, but we've both been nicely surprised.</div>Busiest July for Gardening Excellence.https://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/6660693_BlogPost_239382008-07-14T21:27:39.000Z2008-07-14T21:27:39.000ZAndrew Feredayhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profil/AndrewFereday<div>Well, I've not had much of a chance to write an awful lot recently as I'm finding myself in the middle of the busiest July yet. Usually by this time of year I'm on top of all my gardens and can afford to step back, take a breath and look at the ways my gardens are growing. Not this year. Having taken on one more large garden about six weeks ago, I'm finding myself busier than ever. I'm beginning to think I may need to take on some help at short notice in case I have any more enquiries.What with all the work keeping me busy throughout the daytime and housework and making sure that Cat has clean clothes to go to work in when I get back from gardening, I'm not going to have much of a chance to write much in the next few weeks. I could do with writing an update on the vegetable growing (we're already eating the first of the blueberries) and I'd like to write a bit more about the new garden and maybe even start writing about some of my existing gardens. As for scanning in photos... yeh, right! When I get a minute...! I think I'm suffering from the opposite of Phil's problem - I'm spending so much time out there gardening that I don't have time to blog.</div>Starting work on a new garden: The Sock of Doomhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/6660693_BlogPost_239442008-07-04T23:30:00.000Z2008-07-04T23:30:00.000ZAndrew Feredayhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profil/AndrewFereday<div>Following on from last week's blog, I thought I would write a quick update. I'm going to leave mentioning the lawns from now on, unless there is something specific which I think may be of interest.So today, I got to working on one of the shrub borders. The shrubs themselves don't seem to be in too bad a shape but the spaces around and inbetween them are a bit of a mess. This (I assume) is partly a result of the burgeoning squirrel population which insist on burying all sorts of seeds and kernels in the border and then forgetting about them. The progression of time and the seasons leads to a vast array of tree saplings growing through the shrubs - mainly sycamore but with one or two horse-chestnuts for good measure and variety in the squirrel diet.One of these horse-chestnuts was a little too big to be uprooted by hand and the border is a little too dense for me to get in there with a spade or fork. Having read the discussion about <a href="http://landscapejuice.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=2074886%3ATopic%3A4154">getting rid of knotweed</a> on this very site, I decided to try the 'Glove of Death' remedy. Unfortunately, I don't have any woolen gloves so I had to resort to the 'Sock of Doom'. It doesn't take much working out how to do it... I'm not sure how well it will work but I'll give it a couple of weeks and then have another try.I can't really say that the rest of the day's work was of particular note - I sprayed the patio & driveway to get rid of the weeds, pulled up a load of brambles, shouted loudly at some dead Berberis branches when they ripped my hands to pieces and got invaded by a pair of pea-hens (I think).Oh, and I got quite a nice email from the owners who had noticed the difference that my work is making on the garden.</div>Starting work on a new garden: First Full Dayhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/6660693_BlogPost_238862008-06-28T09:23:22.000Z2008-06-28T09:23:22.000ZAndrew Feredayhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profil/AndrewFereday<div>Well, I have finished my first full day in the new garden so I thought I would add another blog post.The main lawn in front of the house is in a terrible condition. It is full of moss, really spongy to walk on. It has quite a mature weeping willow in the lawn down at one end. I have trimmed some of the overhanging branches to lift them up off the lawn. I'm not sure whether they would layer themselves into the lawn! Either way, it looks much tidier now. I'm going to recommend that the owners get a lawncare firm in to do the seasonal treatments. I won't do that just yet, I'm going to leave it until later in the Autumn; the lawn is in such a bad state that mosskilling, aerating and scarifying will completely ruin it for the rest of the summer. It'll recover quite happily but will look dreadful for a few months and I think the owners will prefer to have the lawn looking the way it does now for the rest of the summer. My lawnmower has a rear roller so maybe that will help to clear some of the moss over the summer anyway.Having done the routine cut on the lawn, I turned my attention to some of the borders surrounding the driveway. There was a small patch which was created by their previous gardener in one corner. This was now completely overgrown with weeds so I thought I would tackle that first. I started off just hand-weeding the little bed so that I could see what was in it. I could see that a herbaceous geranium (probably G. 'Johnson's Blue') was in there. The rest of the bed was just weeds, with the odd red Valerian, which I decided to leave in. As I was pulling up the weeds, I came across a load of sycamore saplings. They had just been dumped into the border, some of them half-buried. There must have been about 30 of them! These were obviously weeds which had self-seeded and the previous gardener must have dug them up and just dumped them down in this bed. Having cleared the bed of all this detritus, I turned the soil over and raked it downreasonably level. The soil in the bed doesn't look too bad, so the bed itself should be ready for some fresh plants to go in. I'll have to see what I have coming along at home that can be divided and go into the little bed.Diagonally opposite the newly weeded bed is a triangular bed which is in dreadful condition. The soil is made up of subsoil, I think from when the driveway was hurriedly created (apparently there were planning issues with the driveway & access to the house, so these borders and the drive itself were cearted in a rush). As a result, this bed is full of quite large stones and has almost no fertility to it at all. The bed is populated with a sparse selection of roses and cordylines which were apparently left over from when landscapers were creating gardens for the new houses built on the land which was sold off. All I have done with this border so far is to give it a go over with the hoe to keep the weeds down. I'll have to get some topsoil delivered to properly finish off this bed. Sometimes being a gardener makes you feel like you're a designer, contractor and nurseryman all in one!That was just about all I time for in the day yesterday. I had planned to weedkill the paving in front of the house and the driveway, but there was no water supply at the house so that will have to wait until next week.I've checked my bank account this morning and their payment has already arrived (I only emailed the invoice this morning), so the owners are probably OK with what I have done. I must say that I love this new faster payments system.</div>Starting work on a new garden: Good News!https://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/6660693_BlogPost_237002008-06-20T12:58:10.000Z2008-06-20T12:58:10.000ZAndrew Feredayhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profil/AndrewFereday<div>As the title suggests, there is good news on the new garden.Picking up from the last update, I didn't think there was much to write about in the new garden. It looked like the owner would only be engaging me to mow the lawn and not much else. I was feeling very disheartened after the first visit but things are looking up...I met the owner this morning very briefly. We had a chat and she asked me how the garden was coming along. After only one visit I didn't have an awful lot to say but I expressed my concerns that only 3 hours a week wouldn't get much more than the lawnmowing done. I recommended 6 hours a week, which is my usual working day once breaks and lunch have been taken out (about an hour in total) and she has agreed to give this a go for a trial of four weeks. The garden needs much more than that to bring it up to a good standard but I am hoping that in four week's time, I will have done enough work to demonstrate how invaluable I will be to the upkeep of the garden as a whole. I'll let you know how that one goes.I also explained that this time of year is difficult when picking up a new garden as usually I would have done much more preparation in the Spring. Once on top of the preparation, it's a much more simple job to keep up with the maintenance and the garden will look consistently better throughout the growing season. Picking up a garden which hasn't had that sort of preparation done in the Spring makes things a little more difficult and it can take longer for the garden to start looking coherent.Looking at this garden, I'm not really sure where to start on the renovation. The areas which are more openly visible are the obvious point to start but there are so many of them that I will probably start with the borders around the entrance / driveway. Getting a good approach up to the house is always appreciated I think (I wouldn't exactly describe it as 'Kerb Appeal' but it's the nearest thing I can think of at the moment).Anyway, having some good news on this garden, I'll upload a few photos once I've scanned them in so you can get a bit of an idea of what I'm facing. I'll hopefully have more to write about as the season progresses. It's still early days yet but hopefully I'll be able to persuade the owner that composting the garden waste is a good thing...</div>Starting work on a new gardenhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/6660693_BlogPost_237852008-06-03T09:00:00.000Z2008-06-03T09:00:00.000ZAndrew Feredayhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profil/AndrewFereday<div>I've been trying to figure out how I can start blogging about the work that I'm doing on domestic gardens without awkwardly crow-barring something into the blog which seems clunky and forced. I think I may have the solution; I am about to take on a new garden and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to start a new blog which will hopefully develop quite naturally and not seem too contrived. The owners have previously had a gardener / handiman but he has proved to be a little too unreliable in his regularity. Fortunately they have parted on good terms and he aknowledged that he was struggling to commit his time as they had wanted him to.I've not actually seen the garden yet, so I don't have much to write about at the moment. I have googled the address and found it on the satellite map; it looks like the garden is part of a large Victorian house. Having spoken to the owner, I gather that the grounds of the house used to be much larger - I'm assuming that part of these were sold off at some point (possibly to a developer) but in any case I don't have to worry about them. All I know at the moment is that the garden has two lawns - a front and a back so little surprise there - and a few borders. I have absolutely no idea what are in the borders as yet and I'm guessing there may be some nasty little surprises lurking somewhere - there usually are. With the situation with the previous gardener being what it is, I'm expecting to find the garden a little overgrown and in need of some remedial attantion to bring it back into shape.I'm going to see the garden for the first time this Thursday afternoon so I will be able to give a better impression of what I'll be taking on and what I'll be facing towards the end of the week.I often get excited when I'm looking at a new garden for the first time as I always see the opportunity to refresh and enliven the garden which all too often has lost its way somewhere along the journey. I suppose I see it as my chance to make a small part of the world a slightly more beautiful place (ooh, get me being all whimsical!).I've never written a blog like this before so I'll apologise in advance if it's rambling or clumsy. Hopefully it'll be of interest to someone out there at some point...</div>