France in Focus

Hehehe!

And next you Bayleaf, will be featured on bbc's Garden rescue.

I know it should be in the Joke section - but it did make me chortle!

Crushed! I was looking forward to seeing another gardener's garden An idea for a thread, though...

Quiksilver wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:32 pm Crushed! I was looking forward to seeing another gardener's garden An idea for a thread, though...

Absolutely! As I do garden maintenance for a measly living, my own "garden" (old farm, so I use the term loosely!) is a perfect case of The Cobbler's Shoe syndrome. Sometimes a few shrubs will get a tidy up, but generally if there's space to let them just do what they want, and they aren't in the way, they're just left to nature. Mowing is to a minimum, and weeding is a very rare event!

The overgrown laurel hedge I have been cutting is taking weeks to achieve. Partly because of the incessant rain making the slope too slippery to get a foothold on, and partly advanced years cutting back my capacity to do a full day's work. I have given up trying to load the trailer as I go, instead just dragging the branches into the roadside ditch to deal with later. Dry days are too precious to waste transporting to the tip. Now that I am nearing the end of the run I have discovered there is a heavy pine branch that is pulling the wire down and that will be tricky. I am thinking place a piece of scrap plywood down to stop a ladder sinking into the muddy ground, lash it to the branch just inboard of the telephone wire, make the cut and hope the branch doesn't lift too much leaving the ladder (and me) dangling above ground. With luck, the section on the wire will drop free and not block the road.

Hotrodder wrote: ↑Thu Feb 29, 2024 12:45 pm Now that I am nearing the end of the run I have discovered there is a heavy pine branch that is pulling the wire down and that will be tricky.

You need a pruning saw on a long extending pole.

Pruning saw won't work here. Branch is too thick. It needs a chainsaw type thing. I recently bought a battery powered mini chainsaw that has been worth every penny. It only needs one hand to operate leaving the other free to hang on to a ladder, etc. I have a fresh chain to hand ready to attack the heavy pine branch if the rain ever stops long enough.

Sounds very dodgy Hotrodder, do the safe stuff, body harness and tie yourself to the tree and not the ladder. Any fall can break stuff and from any height. It’s usually the falling branch that knocks the ladder from under you.

Hotrodder wrote: ↑Thu Feb 29, 2024 5:22 pm Pruning saw won't work here. Branch is too thick.

How thick's thick?
Our saw ,with a blade about 50cm, long rips through 'thick' branches.