Before we moved in, one of the lovely things we remembered about the property was the positioning of two palm tree s outside of the swimming pool. We felt it gave it a tropical feel and now love listening to the leaves rustle when we have a little wind. Each time we walk pass, we admire them and even had pigeons nesting in them last year.
With our irrigation system now working properly, we realise we have a couple of areas in our lawn that could do with some specimen planting. With this is mind, off we trotted to the nurseries to find something suitable. Found a couple of great specimens, one of which had to lay down on a huge trailer to get it back home. We also grabbed a couple of ornamental grasses.
We live in an area of unspoilt countryside that has rolling hills. The downside of this, every time you come to plant something you realise that the earth is not quite what you anticipated. Armed with a spade , a cutting spade and a huge, really heavy cutting type hammer thing, we set about planting our newly purchased palm tree.
Having decided where to put it so it got the afternoon and evening sun, we commenced the digging process. First spade depth all ok, second one a little tricky and then we hit solid rock. Three hours of manual hard labour and a hole developed. Could not believe the amount of stones that came out of the hole that we had chipped away. When I say we for all this work, I really mean Adrian of course because I am pretty useless at this type of thing. My job was on my knees grabbing the rocks out as he either broke them or loosened them.
Three sacks of palm medium in the bottom of the hole and the assistance of Chloe we managed to manhandle the palm tree in to position. More medium and plenty of water with us standing back and looking – it really is fabulous and looks great near the established palms.
The second one took a great deal less effort as the soil really was soil not just rock and we are delighted with the end results.
I know some of you are really familiar with this type of plant but for us English, to have tropical type trees in our own garden gives us a real sense of pride. We hope when you come on your painting holidays, you will be as delighted as us.
Have a look at the new ‘cows’ we put into the garden this winter… There’s an artistic twist of course ;).
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