Welcome to Spring: bike racks and garden edges

 

We now have bike racks at both entrances to the garden, thankfully clearing the garden of our Sunday bikes clutter when they were perched in various places. The racks near our new mulch depot (that Charlotte built from Ian's old decking, pictured below) are looking a bit stark, but will hopefully blend in when the grass grows back - they may get painted too to help them disappear in the background. 

The racks near the kissing gate (pictured above) have been planted around with Pendulous Sedge (Carex pendula), which loves growing in our garden. In time this should enclose the area nicely, taking off the hardness of the bike racks, kissing gate and bridge behind.  

Ben and Didier covered the ground with cardboard layers and then woodchips in the hopes of getting rid of the nettles and dock there. Once clear, we can try to encourage ivy to make a natural, tough and low-growing ground cover. Ben has also been industriously transplanting the pendulous sedges from within our woodland area to the edges to enclose what will be our wild woodland area. 

Pendulous sedge is evergreen and bushy, it grows to a height and width of one metre with its flowering stalks growing another half meter above. This sedge should therefore create a thick, low, evergreen hedge of sedge around the edge! 

A useful saying to distinguish your edges 

This saying isn't 100% true for all species, but is a pretty good bet for distinguishing rushes, sedges and grasses from each other by looking at their flowering stalks: Sedges have edges, rushes are round and grasses are hollow right up from the ground.