At last!

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When we (mostly my partner I admit) dug out our garden pond four years ago it generated a lot of soil, rocks and clay subsoil. We filled several skips (dumpsters) with the clay, and that costs hundreds of pounds to get rid of so we decided to take a break from that. The topsoil is not a problem as I keep adding it to the vegetable patch and using it to fill pots. The clay subsoil, though, is a whole other problem. But my new year’s resolution was to get rid of the two big piles of rocks. One was at the bottom of the garden, which I saw every time I looked out of the back door, and the other was by the garage, which I saw every time I came home or went out anywhere. I was so sick of seeing them! I was determined to get rid of them this spring, but it is surprisingly hard! We had already used them all round the edge of the pond, and piled a bank of them between us and the neighbours on one side, then progress sort of stalled. But at new year I resolved I would get rid of them one way or another. There was a charge to take ‘DIY waste’ to the recycling centre so I wasn’t going to do that. I managed to give away some to a few people who wanted stones for a rockery. I used them to fill any holes that I could think of, used them as hardcore in boggy places during all the wet weather we had, used a row of the bigger ones to mark the boundary between us and our other neighbours, since the original wooden markers are rotted away, and smashed them up with a sledgehammer (until I developed tennis elbow and had to stop). I felt as if I was getting somewhere since the top pile was almost gone – but then I wheelbarrowed the bottom pile up to the top and the situation seemed worse than before. And there was a big bare patch where the bottom pile of stones had killed off all the grass. So I spent quite a lot of time ‘turfing’ the bare patch using the pieces of ‘lawn’ (I use that term loosely) that I dug out when I expanded a flowerbed. Then in April the council announced a change to the rules; we were now allowed to bring a certain amount of DIY waste to the recycling centre free of charge. You have to book it in advance and you’re only allowed to take a certain amount at a time without being charged, so I had to book in a visit a maximum of once per week. And they explicitly state that their staff will not help you with anything, so you have to be able to lift the buckets of rocks up and over the side of the rubble container. So for several weeks I have been filling five buckets (the maximum allowed) with rocks and carting them round there. Today, finally, I got rid of the last of the pile, and scraped and swept up the dust where it had been. For months I have been pushing wheelbarrows of rocks here and there (we have a big garden), and carrying around dozens and dozens of buckets full of them. I am so sick of the sight of them! I can’t tell you how pleased I am that they have finally gone and even the once-bare patch is nicely green again. I don’t have any photos of the rocks (don’t want to be reminded of them) so I’m giving myself a nice spring bouquet instead! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2024.