Back for a rest!

Well back from "holiday" in France. Was two weeks of hard work in the garden planting hedges all around the property. 127 bushes planted in that short space of time and with only 1 day off is pretty good going in my book.

Had to lay some "bache" or plastic sheeting first. It's 1.25m wide and 25m long so had to dig two shallow trenches lay the bache over them and then cover the edges back over, leaving a strip of plastic about a metre wide into which we planted the hedges.

Given that the perimeter is about 270m long this meant I had to dig 540m worth of trenches. Then we both layed the bache and covered it over. Some of the bache was laid narrower where we weren't bordering a neighbour, hence the flap shown above. This picture was taken while we were still planting but we did go around and trim off all the excess.

Hopefully when we go back next year the hedging will be about a metre high, although Claude, our non-english speaking neighbour and all round superman, tells us that some of them are very quick growers so we may have a big surprise waiting for us. He's a retired gardener so knows his stuff and is a font of knowledge on just about any practical subject. I think they turn their hands to just about everything in the french countryside.