All you need is a couple of border patrol cats on squirrel bouncing duty 
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It also allows long distance precision watering of flowers at the neighbour.
Light conditions forced me to stop gardening for the day. I’ve been filling up borders with soil tonight and pulling weeds in other sections.
Lovely stuff it’s all looking so much better even though hardly anything is there. Groundworks. The even more fun part starts hopefully not too long from now when we will plant stuff.
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At least you’re getting on with completing a fabulous new garden, very impressive planning, design and execution!
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Here i’m a bit limited with funds so going at it piecemeal, and although i’ve no previous experience with dry-stone walling it is going up very well, quite surprised at my own stone masonry skills, and not to mention some of the stones are so NAP 500 kind of heavy i can only just lift them. It’s a bit frustrating trying to jigsaw it together, but when the fit happens there is the state of elation 
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They would welcome you doing this in Snowdonia!
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Thought you had an expert in……impressed👍
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After graduating from the dry-stone wall university of you tube, and listening to Pink Floyd the Wall i feel qualified, but i’m sure an expert would pick faults.
The 6 meter wall length is going to take me a couple of weeks so i’m not very quick at it.
Plus need to firstly lift out of the crates situated out the front of house, place in wheelbarrow, wheel around to the rear of house, park wheelbarrow and lift stone out and carry down steps to the building area.
About two thirds done at the mo’, but the remaining stone is not so conveniently shaped so need more jiggling time to stack nice.
Just about have enough stone to get enough height.
The retention height is only a meter and clay-subsoil ground is very stable. There is easily enough weight in the stone to meet structural integrity.
Would like to continue up a further foot so there is a visible dwarf wall from upper ground level, i think this would look right aesthetically but don’t have enough stone to go any higher than about the upper ground level.
Could order another crate, £245 each delivered, had three already… 
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Perhaps complete with what you have…looks great so far….if you still have that itch that needs scratching for more height in a few months. Order when you have some more money?
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French drain. 
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It would have been a drain on my financial resources 
The trench was originally dug for a concrete base for a brick wall, but this costs in bricks, aggregate, sand, cement, and a bricky @ £200 a day. The stone option is a DIY job, more environmentally friendly, and imo looks better.
I’d like to add an update photo here, but my camera’s sandisc card is worn out and expired, new one arriving here tomorrow 
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I have just enough stone to go no higher than patio level. This is okay but the remaining stones are awkwardly shaped and very tricky to finish off the top neatly.
So hot outside spent most of today indoors, but in the early evening i weeded back a little way taking care not to disturb the wild strawberry plant.
Dug some compost in too. The wall level is still about a foot too low but the stone stacking will be easier with the infill raised.
A thunderstorm stopped work with rain so torrential it puddled the hardcore path 
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Last year I planted a bowl of red clover, to attract bees and get some photos that don’t involve kneeling
Last night ,I saw the most amazing caterpillar and thought this will turn into an amazing butterfly
Apparently it’s a Vapourer Moth , the males have wings but the females don’t .
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I did ours last week too!
I’ve been using a protector recommended by the manufacturer of the bench (Bramblecrest) but have been finding it’s been drying out too much and now have some cracking of the wood in a few places.
Last year I tried brushing it on instead of using a cloth, big mistake, some of it has lasted better but it lead to a very patchy result after the winter requiring a lot of work to clean it all off. I normally use a furniture cleaner but did resort to using the pressure washer as well which doesn’t seem to meet with universal approval but my furniture doesn’t seem to have suffered.
I’ve tried using 2 coats of Cuprinol Ultimate Furniture Oil this year. I’m quite impressed by how it’s come up. Let’s see how well it lasts.
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I was told that teak looks after itself so I’ve left it.
I’m surprised how well it comes up after pressure washing.
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Slow,slow gardening.
Lithops on the spare room window.
Gave them a good soak yesterday.
Will they or won’t they? Have had failures in the past.
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Teak and other tropical hardwoods have a lot of natural oil in them which slows down the weathering process, but it won’t stop it altogether. Eventually the grain will open up and allow water in, and joints will always be vulnerable.
If the furniture is quite heavy it may last quite a long time without treatment. Flimsy modern stuff probably won’t.
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Very little flower on our old Bradley apple tree so decided I might as well thoroughly prune it to thin the dense canopy (lots of mistletoe and woolly aphid). The top must be a least 20 feet high.
This began last week and so today I decided the ever growing heap of pruning needed reducing. I was able to work in the shade of the bramley and the walnut.
The temperature reached almost 30c by five when I started watering the glasshouse plants. Yesterday we had an inch of rain. Everything has grown so much!
Phil
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