Surprisingly, we had some rain last night but it soon turned into a beautiful day and it was time to do a bit of gardening after the sun came out and dried everything up. The area around my caravan at the top of my land became plastered with oak leaves and acorns during the autumn and as well as being a bit of an eyesore, they’ve become a real nuisance, especially when they’ve become wet, as it’s then been impossible to stop the leaves walking into the caravan.
I collected my wheelbarrow amongst other things from storage yesterday so today was the day to start clearing them and dumping them in the trees. There are so many that it’ll take more than a day to finish the job but I knew that I’d be able to make a good start today, as proved to be the case. And lucky that I did get cracking, because a very large number of the acorns that have been on the ground since the autumn have started to germinate and have already sent shoots some 3 or 4 centimetres into the ground, so if I’m to avoid having thousands of oak saplings shooting up all around, they needed to be removed, even though I’m bound to miss a lot of them.
I looked around in the trees and found a suitable hollow where I could dump everything that I collected and then I got going. There was no need to rush in the beautiful sunshine so I took it reasonably easy and enjoyed the time out in the fresh air. Here are a couple of shots that I took after I’d cleared the first area up at the top and you can see from the line where the green of the grass starts how much of a difference it was making.
And the next three shots show how far I’d got when I stopped for the day at the back-end of the afternoon.
There’s still a bit to do in the area below my new ‘abris’ (I think ‘abris’, meaning a shelter, sounds better than ‘garden shed’) as the next few shots show.
And I also want to clear the area behind my caravan so I can go and get my outdoor tables and my plant pots and store them there.
So I’ve broken the back of the job and should get it finished tomorrow. It would be impossible to remove every leaf and acorn but what I have managed to pick up today, several dozen barrow-loads, has already made quite a difference. But whether fewer leaves will keep finding their way into my caravan when it rains, only time will tell.
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Hi Rick, good to hear from you. Hope you and Margaret are keeping well. I think you’re right – when I bought the land I told friends how much I like trees but I failed to take into account the volume of acorns and leaves that these oaks produce. I think that when the house is built I’ll have to do as you suggest and take prompt action as soon as they start to fall, before they start to build up.
I’ve already had several branches removed that would have just overhung a rear corner of the house but I was thinking over the week-end that I might have to get an expert in to remove a couple more that are higher than the previous guys I used could reach with their modest equipment. That should at least more or less prevent leaves and acorns falling directly onto the house but I think that I’ll also have to get some mesh grids put into place on the gutters to prevent the soakaways from becoming clogged up with acorns.
Too late this year though to do anything except try to clear away what I can and I don’t have the storage space anyway for now. But definitely something for the future I think.
Very best wishes,
Roger
Hi Roger
I think you would find a petrol powered leaf blower useful?
Ours is indispensable.
Good to follow your progress, best regards
Rick