DB Lenck's Mutinous Musings: I Buried Them in a Shallow Grave

The blackbirds have moved in

I spent the weekend fighting with the garden, yet again. I was planning to go to London, but something came up and I had to stay home. Oh well, next Saturday is the 26th so I'll go to London then. In the meantime I feel sore and exhausted, because my garden is not so much 'A mistress who never fades or disappoints' as a 'Bully with ambitions above his station'. I am still trying to prepare the garden for major tree surgery by my friend C, and I am not getting any sort of co-operation from the creepy crawlies or leafy fiends who inhabit it.

You will recall that some two weeks ago I cut back the pyracantha hedge (well, one of them) and filled nine rubbish bags with its thorny limbs. On Saturday I viewed my collection of bags and decided they took up too much space. So I laid each bag flat on the ground and jumped up and down on it with my wooden clogs (Dutch gardening shoes) until I had reduced their size by 2/3rds. Then I turned my attention to the back of the garden.

While still eyeing the jungle at the back of the garden, my neighbour, an excellent woman in every way who I am always anxious to accommodate, asked shyly whether I might possibly consider cutting back the ivy, which was wreaking havoc with her shed by growing through the walls and roof, and generally making a nuisance of itself. I told her about the tree project and she promised to be patient - the many tangled and exorbitantly ambitious green pest could wait.

However, as I snipped and cut off various bits and pieces at the back of the garden, including two entire pyracanthas and several elder saplings, the ivy got more and more in my way. So I started to pull off a few of its strands, and you know how these things go, before I knew it I was engaged in a major battle. Stem after stem got severed and pulled and tossed upon the growing pile in the middle of the back garden, squashing my wild garlic and struggling primroses.

I took no heed! Mercilessly I attacked the ivy, some of whose stems were as thick as my arm and almost impossible to saw through, until I had cut it down to its thickest stems. There is still some left, but I shall have a few more goes in the evenings and next Sunday.

Afterwards I shall tackle the remaining pyracanthas, especially the one which obscures my view from the bathroom window and strangles my quince tree, and teach a severe lesson to the remaining ivy on the other side of the garden. There is only one problem. The biggest ivy accumulation is halfway up the elder tree (which is to be cut back), and in the middle is a blackbird nest! The parents have been chiding me all weekend long, and I fear pulling down all the ivy, thus destroying the nest and the excellent cover it provides, before the nestlings have flown, would generate more bad Karma than I can afford right now. Problems beset me at every turn!

For the time being I shall cut through the stems of the remaining ivy but leave it in place. That way it will die slowly, but the nest and its inhabitants should not be too inconvenienced. When the baby-birds have hopped it I shall pull the ivy down and throw it into the gardening bags where the other creeping victims of my Tabula Rasa attitude to gardening already languish.

The trouble with cutting back the garden heavily is that it creates massive amounts of garden debris, and where can I put it in this tiny garden? I tried to buy bags from the council, but they were unhelpful and expensive. I thought of hiring a skip, but that would set me back the equivalent of three scarves, so it not a good option. I had negotiations with friends who have cars, but the extent of my gardening waste is so huge that they blanched at the mere mention of driving it to a landfill site - we are talking half a dozen trips, at least.

In a situation like this, when all seems lost and hopeless, it is great to have a fertile mind! Like mine!

I deconstructed the compost heap, stored part of the compost in bags, and distributed the rest over my flower beds. Now I had a good sized corner of the garden free. I dug a hole about three by four feet wide, one foot deep, and built a little wall around it with bricks I had found all over the garden while tidying it up. Then I threw all nine bags of pyracantha clippings into the hole and jumped up and down on them some more until they were quite flat. Then I covered the branches with the soil I had excavated from the hole. I figure I can add at least another two feet worth of material on top of this. That should take care of the remaining pyracantha bushes I need to cut back.

The ivy is trickier. If I put it anywhere near the ground it will sprout roots and take over - that's what it had done in my compost heap. Therefore I shall store all ivy cuttings in a large (or several large!) gardening waste bag until they are good and dead. Then they can go into the hole with the other gardening debris.

All I have now to dispose of are one or two bags full of branches, and of course the elder trunk once it has been cut back to six feet high or so. I shall dig a shallow grave for them at the bottom of the garden, next to the one where the pyracantha cuttings lie buried. Then I shall lay my logs and branches into the hole, add whatever green stuff I still have, and cover them with soil. There they shall lie, slowly rot down, and provide a haven for all sorts of creepy crawlies. And when they have decomposed sufficiently, I may plant something on top of them, like a pot-bound Christmas tree, or even tomatoes (I can dream, can't I?).

Lest you think I am completely mad, this is actually an old European agricultural practice, called Huegelkultur. The only drawback I can see is that this will further increase the height of my garden - I am already a foot above my neighbours because I compost and mulch so assiduously. But never mind, it might come in handy if there is another flood and I have to flee to higher ground.

So, voila, I have solved my garden waste disposal problem in an elegant and environmentally friendly way, and at little cost. I am so proud of myself! Mind you, it is an awful lot of work....