It's happening!

[GinAndOnIt]

At last!

I posted last summer about our front garden, and the huuuuuge overgrown mass of lots of bushes which is stuck right in the middle. Well, today, our neighbour has moved all the horse fencing, FIL has turned up with the forklift, the bonfire is lit and DP is armed with the chainsaw. Hurray!

I'm posting the 'before' pictures again, in the hope I can follow up with the 'after' pictures this afternoon

Gin I am looking at my lawn now and thinking it's getting within a week or two of needing it's first trim. Have just cut back my roses - they were 'inherited' with the house so this is the first time I've had to trim them! Have never grown roses before and have got all my expertise (ie none) from a secondhand copy of 'The Rose Expert'... Really hope I haven't killed them!!

The saying here is to get your enemy to cut your roses! Mum in law works on an estate in Scotland. Their head gardener runs over their roses with hedge trimmer, they're gorgeous and stacks of them every year.

I feel like our lawn is starting to be ready too. It could probably wait, but I want DP to have time to give it a proper good first cut so I can hopefully just do little top ups from then on, but he will be working 7 days a week pretty soon I think!

The Rose Expert sounds like it might be a book I should invest in, if I'm going to not kill these fourteen roses I now seen to have

I think my first lawn cut will be quite a bit later than yours, owing to the difference in climate! I tend not to need to do mine until late March/early April whereas plenty of people who get more sun (I'm not jealous of your beautiful climate, NO REALLY ) do it earlier! The trick is to to a very light first chop, almost so it's a nugatory effort. Chopping the tips off the grass makes it bulk up. Then you can do further cuts progressively lower until it's robust enough to stand a decent shearing! I have to use a hover mower because my soil is so ridiculously wet and heavy that anything else just churns it up too much. But my lawn is more moss than grass!

14 roses! You are going to be the forum's expert on them!

shove I live in North Wales!! That's the first time anyone has ever said they are jealous of our climate!!

I've got about 30 roses, some of which were apparently planted decades ago... They are beautiful but held such sentimental value for the old couple who used to own the house, I live in fear of ruining them!!

rue - I meant Gin's climate!! North Wales is even wetter than my edge of Sheffield. But at least it is very, very beautiful to make up for it. I do love the landscape - so lush and green. And people who live there have always been absolutely lovely to me whenever I have been. To grow 30 roses, you must have a decent site and soil! I really struggle with them - am north-facing, though, which even the ones that tolerate shade dislike.

I may not be jealous of your climates, but I am jealous of both of your hometowns I used to spend my teen years in Sheffield, utterly obsessed with the place! It was very strange, the first time I went, I felt instantly content and at home as soon as I stepped off the train!

I am jealous you live in North Wales too, Rue - I am from South Wales and am forever trying to convince Hertfordshire farmer DP that we should retire in North Wales