Van Stadens 2013.05.15

Been a bit slack lately, I think I missed the last three trips, two of those were walks and only one was a ‘work in the arboretum’ Wednesday.

It was Rob’s first day this year that he employed two helpers to remove Podalyrias which have resprouted and he needed the broad pick so the first thing we did was to find him and deliver the pick.

Last week we fixed a leak just beyond the tap, encasing the leaking joint in concrete hadn’t worked so instead we had put in a new join and it was fine this time.

We also had uncovered a break in the pipe near the old shade house and we put a new piece in so we can test it next time around when the glue has set and discover the next break. We will get there one day. While I prepared the join Ellie filled in the previous hole and then dug out the two remaining slabs to be taken to the nursery.

We also had made a start last time to remove the chicken wire roof off the old shade house so we continued with that. It was a lot of snipping especially because we wanted to preserve the wire so we can reuse it to protect trees and bulbs from marauding porcupines.

At lunchtime we got some aloes in the nursery and proceeded to plant them in the beds.

Ellie got playful with some rocks and planted the small aloes amongst them while I raked some paths and removed some old shade cloth.

As usual we ran out of time, even more so because on the way out we still wanted to do some weeding in the ‘Brunsvigia patch’ in the first circle. Even though the soil is nice and friable after the rain it was still quite a job to dig the large tufts of grass out, it looks a whole lot better though.

The setting sun made for some beautiful light on the Ericas which we admired before setting off for home.