You may have realized by now, that I’ve referred to the mudscapades a couple of times in recent posts. It’s one of those things that you don’t want to dwell on mentally because the trauma of the situation is a bit overwhelming. But, here we go. It’s time to pull my hands from my eyes and face this situation, and tell you all about it.
I live on a croft. This means the land around the house is farmland. It’s not been landscaped or worked in any way, it’s just hilly fields – with lots of rocks. LOTS! The grass all around is wild grass (which is why I sowed proper lawn seed a few years ago at the front of the house). Being unworked farmland also means that while around the house has some drainage, the croft has none. Water just sloshes through and over the land everywhere and focuses on the easiest path down. Down means towards the house. Do you see where I’m going with the mudscapade reference? Maybe I should call it a mud-avalanche. Doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? Sigh.
Last year, while doing my cluster of flowerbeds project and starting on my heap of rubble project I had to re-dig a field drainage ditch that needed to be widened and cleared. It was not the nicest or easiest of jobs. I suspect I’m going to have to do the same at the back of the house, on a much larger scale.
I’m dreading it.
Let’s start this brief story then!
In the early autumn of last year, in a race to save my daisy and salvia seedlings (extras that I hadn’t planted in the front or side garden) I decided to create a little circular flower bed around our antenna pole. This is next to some wooden steps we had laid into the hill leading down to the back door, a few years ago. These three steps go up the steepest part of the incline right by the back door, and lead to the larger vegetable patches and the gate to the wider part of our croft. It also leads to my fruit empire, but we’ll talk about that later!
It’s a very small flower bed, containing about 8 daisy plants and 2 salvias. I wasn’t sure if they would establish themselves, but it was a mild and wet autumn (let’s not mention the gales) and the little plants look quite healthy and fluffy at the moment.
But, there is mud. A lot of mud. Even a tiny bit of a mud-avalanche! The wooden steps have been dislocated from their earth and gravel ledges, the water now floods everywhere in the vicinity, and it is a general mess.
Honestly, I’m struggling to come up with a plan. I know a field ditch has to be dug somewhere, but where? Where is too high on the hill to catch this water? We have not had mud and flooding like this before, which makes me wonder if it has something to do with the newly created veg patches we installed last year. It’s a total nightmare.
Ok, let’s focus on what we do know. The steps are going to be concreted into the hill this spring. A landing will be made connecting the steps to the pavement around the house, so that wellies will no longer be necessary to walk 5 steps from the back door. In creating this landing, clearing out and levelling work will be done next to the pavement of the house to create a uniform level.
Now, we have my wishes. I’d like to create a low hedge along the top of this steeper incline, on the level with the top step. But let’s think practically here. Planting for a hedge means maintaining the grass around those plants. One side of this area drops off fairly steeply. There can be no lawn mower or strimmer on that edge after a hedge is planted. So what then? Remove all the grass to the hedge? Ha! That would just create a wall of mud immediately. Ultimately I’d like some sort of retaining wall, not because anything needs retaining per se, but it would look lovely and put an end to my problems/ decisions. But I’m not rich, so there goes that thought out the window.
And then there’s the field ditch. Let’s not talk about that monster any more. Oooh, Monster Mudscapades – I like that.
So I guess all I can say is watch this space! Something will happen! Right???
