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spandit

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Everything posted by spandit

  1. We've discussed cutting it lower but she wants it gone, apparently being against it from the start. The view beyond includes a power transformer and the corrugated iron siding to our neighbour's compost heap as well as a couple of his sheds. She murmured yesterday about cutting down a mature hedgeline so that she could see the sea more clearly on the two days a year it's clear enough to actually see with binoculars. We'd have to see about getting the South Downs relocated too but she could just sit on them
  2. That is a good idea, but she'd do it anyway and I'd face the brunt of the planning department - it's happened before. She feels entitled to do what she wants because she's widowed
  3. Wilderness is absolute anathema to her. She likes things twee and formal. Before she got going the garden looked like a Monet painting. It now looks like a Bovis home.
  4. Reading that in a Geordie accent
  5. No. You'll kick yourselves when you find out
  6. Is that from Anne Summers?
  7. Not exactly. Due to my father-in-law's ill health, we sold our respective houses and bought this one together. Due to a slight c*ck up in the conveyancing process, they're not listed on the deeds despite having put in 30% of the money. My wife thus owns 65% and I own 35% (despite paying £90 a day to live there... :o). This doesn't exempt them (or her, as my father in law died suddenly last year at the age of 62) from inheritance tax due to the GROB rules (gift with reservation of benefit) but because the initial investment (£250K) doesn't accrue interest, it stays below the threshold and is thus taxed at 0%, so effectively it is tax free. If she had retained a legal 30% stake in the property, then due to the rise in house prices since we bought it, her estate would be over the threshold and we would be liable for inheritance tax when she dies. Unfortunately, just after my father-in-law died, she got an inheritance from someone else so now has loads of cash which she is spending like water on stuff to make my life miserable. The best analogy I have found, which holds up pretty well, is thus: Imagine I were to gift you the car of your choice. Let's say you fancied an Aston Martin DBS. It is yours. You can have whatever colour you like and whatever interior you like. It's sat on your drive right now, gleaming bodywork just catching the last of the sunshine. Gorgeous. Your friends must be very jealous. There must be a catch, right? There is, but it's only minor, I assure you... The car has a constant smell of dogshit. Sometimes it's almost imperceptible, sometimes it's overpowering but most importantly you can't forget that it is there. You might try to use the car to pull someone you find desirable, but as soon as they get in, they'll start sniffing and want to get out again. You might find that you want rid of the car and thus advertise it for sale, but who would buy a car that has a constant smell of dogshit? Costs a lot to upkeep, this car, and I never said I'd contribute towards that. You're stuck with it now, sunshine. Enjoy.
  8. Not buddleia. It's only about 2 inches across.
  9. Legally no (for tax reasons) but morally she has a stake and tends to just do things whilst I'm away.
  10. She has a father and son team who take her money for not doing very much so they'd do it or she'd hack it apart with various G-Tec electric tools. We live in an 1870 farmhouse and I'm convinced she'd put astroturf down if she could to match the plastic flowers she's put in to replace the beautiful old lavender that was growing several feet up the well
  11. I know what this is having just cut it down but do you? Wouldn't have known it looked like this inside
  12. About 4 years ago I planted a hawthorn hedge along our field up to the gate, to stop people coming up the drive and going in. We've since put gates in further down the drive and my mother in law, who unfortunately lives with us, is complaining the hedge ruins her view (of another hedge). She is adamant that it will be grubbed up (I've managed to delay it until the winter but she's frantic to get rid of it, out of spite, largely). I've even checked with the council as I'd read that hedges bordering fields were protected but sadly they don't have a problem with it being removed. Just makes me so effing angry that my hard work and expense are going to be destroyed so she can look at more of the field than she can already see. I won't even post pictures of what she's done to the garden (we bought the house off a florist and it was stunning, now it looks as if ISIS have paid a visit) and I've lost count of the number of mature shrubs she's hacked down. Just having a rant. Sorry.
  13. Got plenty of oak seedlings growing in my barn gutter but they're not sizeable
  14. He goes by the name "Ye" now. It would keep me out of a woodland...
  15. Must get out there with my machete to cut down some of the brambles as my brush mower struggles to knock them over. Blackthorn prick looks nasty...
  16. I use Tegera 17 - maybe not quite as puncture proof as the Ripeur ones but a quarter of the price
  17. Good for tool handles, I'm told. Might be a bit small and short for longbows, unfortunately
  18. You've inspired me to get out there and mulch some trees that have been struggling. I have a pear that was growing near a big leylandii hedge and was leaning out to try and get some light. The hedge is gone now and I've had it strapped up to a post to stop it falling over altogether. Hopefully it will stay more or less upright now (not entirely vertical) but I've surrounded it with a sheet of cardboard that is weighed down with logs and then covered in wood chip (goat willow) Did the same to a Chinese dogwood that nearly died during the drought - found a tunnel underneath it (presume vole) so shoved a load of soil around it and then put some weed membrane down, again weighted with logs and wood chip. Third tree is a black mulberry that I thought had died - still hasn't made it out of the top of the tube (after 3 and a half years) but since planting comfrey around it as a chop and drop mulch it looks pretty healthy - nice green leaves just under the top of the tube. Chopped the comfrey down again and added a load of cut dock leaves too - no shortage of them in the field but as dynamic accumulators they do some good where the soil is compacted
  19. spandit

    The Old Farm

    It's a domestic residence but an old farm so access is good and space isn't an issue. I'll take any arb waste although if it's large amounts of brash you must be prepared to deliver it directly to a habitat pile. Chip I can spread out and logs I either process for burning or dump somewhere for wildlife. If you don't have my number, please message me on here first as we have electric gates so someone will need to let you in and tell you where to tip.
  20. I’d be impressed if you managed to kill it. The willows I have here (predominantly grey) get savagely hacked back to stumps every couple of years and they come back with a vengeance
  21. spandit

    Habitat piles?

    The latest one is quite close to a pond so hopefully the newts will find it. It's all willow at the moment but I have a load of conifer I can add (not ideal, I'm told). Not a huge amount of other hardwood yet but it's a start
  22. spandit

    Habitat piles?

    Get off the fence, Mark Tree surgeon dutifully turned up with the chip and logs so we went to neighbour who then said he couldn't take any of the logs but could take the chip, so we drove back to mine, unloaded the logs (up in the woods) and then he drove back to my neighbour to dump the chip (which was good stuff, no leaves). Not a word of thanks from the neighbour. Maybe there's a reason my woodland has won an award and his hasn't
  23. spandit

    Habitat piles?

    Another very generous member on here has offered me some logs and as I am quite flush at the moment, I offered them to a neighbour. He says (despite having 8 acres) that he doesn't have the space for many so I said it wasn't a problem and I'd probably just pile the rest up for habitat. He replied: "Environmental equivalent of a paperweight" First I've heard of this - all the advice online (and from the ecologist I had round the other week) is that they are good for invertebrates and small mammals - can't find any evidence to the contrary and my dogs always seem interested in the smells that emanate from them
  24. Tried it with a coppiced willow - stem fell over and now it's a sprawling bush again

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