Green rubbish removal

Green rubbish removal, done on the worst day possible, with the daytime temperature only 15 degrees, heavy rain and wind.   But we had booked the trailer for this day, and Darren had a day off work, so there was nothing for it, but grit the teeth and get into it.

I am so pleased I bought my ankle length Wellington boots from the UK, and the waterproof trousers.  At least my feet and legs were dry.   I did have a raincoat too.   But sadly the leather gardening gloves became saturated. 

Walter and I had already separated some of the twigs, leaves and branches, into piles for shredding, wood for burning later, and green rubbish.  

Our new shredder!   My reasoning. why pay to dump the green waste, have it shredded there, and then buy it back again as mulch.    It probably would be easier and cheaper in the long run to do precisely this.   Still it is fun shredding small branches and tipping the crunched up debris into the compost bin.   Keeps us occupied.

Darren used to have a gardening business, so he still has all the tools for large scale pruning.   And the expertise too.

The Australian pine tree was trimmed back, and is no longer leaning on the fence.

All the overly large and brown Strelitzia branches were cut out.   They were so heavy, it took two people to carry them to the trailer.

It all looks so much better now, although we have a lot of bare fence showing, but at least we can tell what needs to be planted in between the trees.  Piper loved investigating the cleaned up area.

Now Darren is also a whizz at putting everything on a 6 x 4 trailer, and tying it down so that nothing moves or blows off.   First the pine branches were put on the trailer.   I was given instructions on how to place them with the trunk to the back of the trailer, so that the trunks could be pulled and then all the rubbish would come off with the branches.   Unfortunately I misinterpreted the instructions and put the trunks to the front of the trailer.   Anyway it still worked.

We then put the soft rubbish on, i.e. the succulents, Yukka leaves, and other bits and pieces.   Darren kept tying the rubbish down as we went along, without knots either.   Very clever.   We then placed the Strelitzia trunks and leaves on top, and finally a Yukka branch.   Then it was all tied down and off we went to the local dump.

Darren drove and reversed the trailer.   Such expertise.   I decided not to tell him about the trials I had reversing the caravan in Europe.

Walter and Darren untying the rope. 

And a few minutes later Walter and Darren started pulling the rubbish off the trailer.

Nearly finished.

And now we have a nicely cleaned up garden, all ready for some imaginative planting when we return from Europe.

My new leather gardening gloves have dried out very nicely, thank goodness.