On Fri, 14 May 2004 18:14:50 +0200, martin wrote:

On Thu, 13 May 2004 22:20:21 +0100, Janet Baraclough..
wrote:

The message
from "[H]omer" contains these words:


You need to think very carefully about how you are going to regularly
mow a steep slope 14ft high.

Would a strimmer be OK?

Only if your arms are seven feet long.

and your legs too.

By amazing coincidence ...

Actually I've just spent the last couple of days strimming and digging.
Hard work, but not as awkward as I thought it would be ... even with a
crap low powered electric strimmer (note to self: buy petrol strimmer).

The biggest problem has been the granite chips (blocks, more like; about
the size of a fist or bigger) that my father had used as a barrier against
weeds. It didn't work; the weeds defied the rocks and the grass just grew
right through them. He'd dug a trench at the top-rear of the slope, lined
it with some kind of poly-liner, then filled it with the granite. It
looked terrible, interfered with maintenance, and got covered (and
embedded) with organic waste that proved very time consuming to clean up.

It'll take me at least another full day to move those rocks, re-dig and
level the soil, and maybe re-use *some* of the rocks as a neater single
line at the back, for decoration. So if someone needs a couple of tonne of
red granite rocks, gimme a call ...

That grass was an absolute nightmare to dig up. I've never seen roots like
it; you could tow a car with them. I'm not too worried about completely
eradicating the grass though (there's still some traces of roots in the
soil) since I'll let it re-grow once the "meadow" has established.

All I need now is wildflower species that compete/live well with wild
grass.

-
[H]omer