Gardening Overload..........

When I first moved into the villa, the garden space at the side of the villa looked totally overgrown. The ground cover was a thick tangled green plant that had sprawled all over the place. You can see what the garden typically looks like with this excess greenery in the photo below.

Over the last week, I decided to get down to business and start culling the place. There was an unbelievably thorny bush that was right next to the path that had left a couple of holes in my feet, so it was ripped out. An old tree stump that had been cut back years ago and had started to sprout in random directions need to come out. It was a bit of a nightmare as the roots were well established and quite thick, using a hacksaw on them wasn't the easiest thing, but it was the only saw I had!

Maya chopping back the sprouts before stump removal

Dug out the stump

Dragged out to the bin area

There was also another tree stump, I though this was going to be extremely difficult, however, it literally fell out when I pulled it. First I had to clear the area around it as you can see.

Continuing to cull, things were starting to look better, especially once the ground cover greenery was removed. There was an overgrown half dead ivy on the wall, As you can see, the last time they painted the walls, they just painted round the thing,

Old half dead ivy cut out.

 Continuing to trim back and dig out, and one side of the house it looking a lot better.

Tree stump still to come out, as does the sandpit (bottom left)

Bush next to path to come out

Starting to look a lot more tidy.

Things round the water tank still to come out.

Next up is to remove the things round the water tank, the bush next to the path and the tree stump before the 'sandpit'. After this is done, the old 'sandpit' that appears to being used as a toilet by the wild/stray cats is going to be removed. The palm tree also needs dressed to remove all the old growth and smooth off. Maybe give it a lick of paint like they do at the side of the roads!

Then it will be over to the other side of the garden and see what needs thinning out there. Maybe Sheldon will turn up at that side as he has been missing for about 8 weeks now.

The horrible bit is the bugs....the amount of beetles, slaters and god knows what else living in the old leaves etc. I had one freak out moment when quite happily removing the undergrowth and looked down to see a large 1 inch black beetle thing crawling over the top of my bare toes in my flip flops. Especially when you disturb a whole family of them and see about 30 of the critters scurrying and start digging into the soil.

And before anyone asks why am I doing this myself and not getting maintenance or the gardeners to do it, well it is quite simple, keeps me busy and saves me going to the gym! Just need to pick the timings, best to do it when it is shaded, but doesn't half make you sweat buckets, especially when it is mid 40's C even in the shade.

I don't know if you also know the old fact about digging in an overgrown garden is that you will always find an old bouncy ball or a marble, well yes it holds true, I did find an old marble and a lonely bit of lego!