Belial's Backyard - Gated and Retained

Firstly, a belated thanks fu.
Haven't dropped by in the last few days.
One of the plans for this weekend is to re-stake it but higher up the tree, the issue for the moment is that being top heavy plus 20-30odd knot winds had it blowing all over the shop and making some rather concerning creaking from the trunk .

So the plan is to stake in a similar fashion to how our flame tree was (before the concreters backed over it), three tall stakes tied in the fashion fu suggested, unfortunately its in a fairly exposed section so that whenever we get a westerly its flopping all over the place.
So i think having it higher up will limit the allowed movement to something reasonable, i think if it do it at that height we're likely to come back to a tree with a snapped trunk given the weather forecast.

And i'll pass on the pic to my better half who is the pruner

Tomorrows all full up, but we should get some progress on sunday.

So I got out in the garden yesterday to get a bit more done but as usual not as much as i'd planned.

I made some progress on Operation - Espalier'd Orange.
Finished digging the post holes, and measured up the posts so I could cap the angle tops to the correct height to match the fence.

20110410-IMG_0723 by Belial669, on Flickr

Was a bit dirty for having the camera on hand, so the next shot is of the posts finshed and concreted in

20110410-IMG_0726 by Belial669, on Flickr

And from another angle, the next step is to set the eyes in the posts and get the wire strung between them, but it may be next weekend before that happens.

20110410-IMG_0731 by Belial669, on Flickr

Also on the agenda at the end of the day was to tackle our weed problem... well at least make a start.
And a word of advice, Fu's soil prep method definately works....however you really shouldn't leave it for weeks in between doing the prep and getting the turf as we have.
In 10 Weeks we've gone from

20110122-IMG_0423 by Belial669, on Flickr
To

20110123-IMG_0430 by Belial669, on Flickr
To

20110410-IMG_0722 by Belial669, on Flickr

Considering we went from completely barren clay which even the weeds wouldn't grow in to the above, we definately now have fertile soil.
So as it stands after 2 hours at the end of the day, I pulled out by hand anything over a foot high, the rest will meet the brushcutter sometime this week and maybe the cultivator on the weekend.
So after 2 hours of labour I ended up with

20110410-IMG_0735 by Belial669, on Flickr

Considering its mostly made up of thistles, potato plants/nightshade (not sure which) and a few other plants that were all starting to go to seed, I decided upon just bagging them up for now, they'll sit out the back until we get a compost heap started which is about job #63746 at the moment.

And last but not least I restaked the tree with taller stakes, with just the tape strung between the stakes, rather than to the tree itself.
Seems to be quite effective so far, it can move around but doesn't appear to be a the same risk of breaking as before.

20110410-IMG_0720 by Belial669, on Flickr

However I'm just after a little advice on what to prune with the tree, I've taken the shot below from a better angle.

20110410-IMG_0721 by Belial669, on Flickr

So from fu's pic, I take it I should cut the highest branch thats basically vertical? And this will encourage it to spread out a bit more before going up?
Also we've been considering pruning some of th elower shoots from lower down the trunk, is there any for's or againsts doing this?

Having never really pruned before i'll take all the advice i can get.

From how the two limbs are you should be fine to cut on the yellow line. Leave it with a bit sticking out. in years to come it will make for a healthier cut. So don't cut super close to the stem.

Look to move the support down the stakes as the months go on. By end of winter, you'd not have much support at all and the tree should be strong

Oh and good mulch You;ll need that garden bed filled up with some nice red kangapaws

Cheers Fu, your advice as always is greatly appreciated.

I'd take off the lower shoots - not for any real benefit to the tree, just an aesthetic thing. Less shrubby, more tree-ey.



I've done it to my Waterhousia and it's developing a nice shape now. With my Magnolia Little Gems on the other hand, I've encouraged the bushy lateral growth, because I want them to form a dense barrier along our side boundary, to eventually block out the view of our neighbour's ugly garden.

It all depends on what shape you want.

Thanks Kek, we're looking at taking off pretty much everything up to just below where the tape currently goes around the stakes, so we get a bit more clean trunk before it spreads.

Also I must revisit your thread for some espalier help as getting that sorted is on the to do list for this weekend.

Cheers
Belial

I'd be leaving the lower ones on. They will help to balance the tree, giving it a low centre of gravity and a stronger future. You can always trim the lower limbs off in a few years time to get it cleared out underneath.

So we got a bit done over the weekend, we pruned the japanese maple out the front.

20110416-IMG_0738 by Belial669, on Flickr

I spent an hour and a half, whippa snipping our crop of weeds

20110416-IMG_0737 by Belial669, on Flickr

And we made some progress on the espaliered orange tree.

Getting the level for the base wire.

20110416-IMG_0740 by Belial669, on Flickr

We worked out the height of the lowest branch and set one eyelet at that level, then using some spare line, then used it and the level to work out the positioning of the corresponding eyelet on the other post.
We used this method as the ground isn't at the same level for the posts, hence we can't measure from the ground, also as we set the posts so they were at different heights to match in with the fence posts, it meant we couldn't measure from the top either.

20110416-IMG_0742 by Belial669, on Flickr

All the eyelets installed on one side, we went with an approximate 30cm spacing.

20110416-IMG_0748 by Belial669, on Flickr

The eyelets in on both sides

20110416-IMG_0747 by Belial669, on Flickr

The wire loosly looped in place, we choose to follow kek's method here so we only required one turn buckle and two pieces to secure the ends.

20110416-IMG_0749 by Belial669, on Flickr

The wire tightened up, which required a bit of stuffing around to get even tension without bowing the posts (too much).

20110416-IMG_0752 by Belial669, on Flickr

The unfinished product, with the tree starting to be trained to the wires and the upright stake with budding tape.

20110416-IMG_0754 by Belial669, on Flickr

And a close up. the next piece of the puzzle is to work out what we still need to prune.
We're keeping the upright trunk on the right as the upright (duh), so we're think for the branch that extends to the left we should remove the new growth thats extending upward, and we're also not sure quite what to do with the top any suggestions would be appreciated.

20110416-IMG_0755 by Belial669, on Flickr

Well done - you get two thumbs up for that. Very impressive and also handy for when we want to do it to our trees.

Nice job.

Topiarus has some pruning advice here somewhere. He's the guru, so do a search for his posts.

Seems its about time for an update, much has been going on for us since the last update, just not as much on the landscaping front as we would have liked

Still there has been progress of sorts, beginning with the gate which has been many months in the making with constant interruptions but we got there in the end.

We decided on a design where the outer frame would be visible with timber paneling within the frame, similar to what most people have installed around us, but slightly different

The frame was made from gal steel, cut, shut and welded. Early on in the piece we found that our welding skills weren't up to the task and so it was farmed out to my father .

For the timber in the centre we decided to use our left over jarrah boards from our floor, with a few additionals bought from the flooring supplier so we didn't need any joins.

As the timber was tongue and grove i spent a 'fun' day with the router table taking off the tongues.

I've misplaced the early pics, so we'll start with what i do have.

The gate is made up of 3 seperate panels, 2 fixed panels and the main gate which opens.
Here you can see the 3 panels, with all the timber cut to size and *rough* test fitted

IMG_0930 by Belial669, on Flickr

As the frames are visible and reflective coatings aren't allowed by our estate, they need to be painted.
How do you paint a frame thats 1.8x1.5? Why you hang it up, and with the help of some straps slung across the end of the garage door tracks we were able to do so.

Undercoat going on

IMG_0932 by Belial669, on Flickr

Final colour going on, C/B ironstone to match our guttering.

IMG_0936 by Belial669, on Flickr

The main gate was positioned firstly just as frame so we could set up the hinge positions on the plate for the post, and for the gate itself.

The first panel affixed to the post.

IMG_0948 by Belial669, on Flickr

The second panel affixed to the post.

IMG_0949 by Belial669, on Flickr

The main gate panel, all screwed down. It took the best part of a day to position, drill pilot holes, drill countersinking holes and finally screw in the self tapping metal screws to hold each timber piece to the frame and more screws than i want to remember. (not looking forward to doing the deck at this point )

Also the timber was sanded prior to affixing, and had a couple of coats of of oil applied to both sides.

IMG_0950 by Belial669, on Flickr

And the finished piece.

IMG_0956 by Belial669, on Flickr

We also added sliding bolts to hold it in place, but having to reach over the gate to unlock it is a pita, so we're currently looking for other options that will allow us to unlock it from the front.

In the meantime our neighbours finally worked out what they were doing with their front garden, which included them building a retaining wall, but much closer to the front of their house, than ours is to the front of our house.
Which left us in need to retain at the boarder, so after a little negotiation we determined that we'd extended our wall around and down the side to the fence.

IMG_0941 by Belial669, on Flickr

So a trip to Austral later, we'd ordered the blocks, specifically the GB masonary Heron limestone blocks from QLD to match our existing wall, since we built the last wall Austral started making a range of the same blocks in melbourne but with slightly different color and with only half width cap stones, so it was with much relief and emptying of the wallet we ordered the blocks.

However after they arrived and we had unloaded them off the pallet, we found they weren't quite right, with 10 blocks not being the same color, after some stuffing around their rep came out to take a look and confirmed yes, they were the wrong colour with those 10 being the new 'silverstone' colour made in melbourne, tbh when dry they are VERY similar, however when wet they turn a grey colour rather than the yellow that our exisitng blocks do, so that wasn't going to fly and austral came to the party and replaced them with the correct blocks without much fuss.

Game time can you spot the 10 differently coloured blocks?

IMG_0947 by Belial669, on Flickr

And so i set to, excavating in preparation for laying a crushed rock base.

IMG_0944 by Belial669, on Flickr

IMG_0942 by Belial669, on Flickr

As usual my left over stockpile of crushed rock out the back wasn't quite enough, so i did what i could then went to go get some more after checking the finshed level height.

IMG_0945 by Belial669, on Flickr

Due to the slope and the change in height, i had to hold in my crushed rock base, so some treated pine board was called for up against the path, (if ever i was to do this again, i'd do the retaining first then the paths so i wouldn't end up having to work around levels we can't really change.)

IMG_0951 by Belial669, on Flickr

So with much cursing, leveling, scoria shovelling and contact cementing the capstones in place it was done, and just in time for cider o'clock.

IMG_0954 by Belial669, on Flickr

And in other news, our Japanese maple out the front re-sprouted leaves finally after a very bare winter and has been doing quite well.

IMG_0958 by Belial669, on Flickr

Thats about it for now, more has been done such as tilling our prepared soil down the side of the house to limit the weeds growing, i got sick of mowing it and now that most of it has broken down it actually is starting to look like very fertile soil.

Next time i'm out tilling, i'll get a few pics and we'll try not to leave it so long between visits to homeone.

Cheers
Belial

With the gate you could use a regular gate latch halfway down. Then install two saddle clamps, one just short of the top, the other some way down. Straighten out some fencing wire. Drop it down the saddle clamps. attach the bottom to the latch by twisting it on. Then on the top bend a small loop over that is about the size of your finger width. Loop it and twist it going back down the wire. Nice and neat. Now you have a little loop that just sticks up from the top but isn't noticeable. Lift it up and it pulls the latch up.
Very cheap and easy to do. Will work for tens of thousands of years to come.

Oh with the tree, it will pay to cap each end of the pipe. As much as it serves a good means to wet the soil deeper down, it also will help dry the soil faster than it might otherwise.

That ag drain can be fitted with pvc fittings and a screw on cap each end will help reduce air flow and increase the chances of the moisture hanging around.

Cheers fu, i'll grab a couple of caps the next time i'm visiting the big green shed (shouldn't be too long a wait )

With respect to the gate, the issue with the current system is only that my other half, well she's vertically challenged in that i can reach over the gate, but she can't so the current methods aren't working.

So currently looking at something like a deadlock or preferably an exterior rated version that i can mount lower down and have it key lock from both sides.
We also need it to be secure, so it needs a locking mechanism.
But thanks for the suggestion

Well that's a whole other story then

Another fantastic thread!!

wow... you wall looks. great,but gezz u did it the hard way.

If there is one thing I've learnt about DIY landscaping its this. "There ain't no way but the hard way. So get used to it."

End of the day, I got exactly what I wanted and I know I won't have to do it again.

well done, very inspiring