Winter 2019-2020 and progress with my front garden

This past winter, which is hopefully now over, has been my third spent in Stará Oleška. Yes, I’ve now lived here for two weeks short of three years.

The view from my front door on the morning of Saturday 29th February 2020 © Ricky Yates

One of my regular commenters asks for me to post snowy winter photographs. Well this one – the view from my front door on the morning of Saturday 29th February 2020, is the best I can do, as this past winter has been remarkably mild. And within a few hours, all the snow in this photograph had melted.

A combination of it being a mild winter, together with my new wood-burning stove, has meant that I’ve had no problem at all in keeping warm this winter. I’m also very pleased that the hope I’ve expressed a couple of times previously, that the logs delivered in mid-January 2019 would last until the end of this winter, has been fulfilled.

Empty woodshed © Ricky Yates

This is the inside of one end of my woodshed where my logs were once stacked, right up to the roof.

Split logs, ready for my wood-burning stove © Ricky Yates

But in mid-April, when this photograph was taken, I still had this supply of logs that I’d previously split, sitting on a table in the other half of the woodshed. These have enabled me to have the wood-burning stove going for a few hours each morning which is all I’ve needed the past few weeks.There are still some left if we do have few more cool days like today. The stove is burning merrily as I write 🙂

Although I pruned the vine on the front of the house in the Spring of 2019, I failed to give a serious ‘haircut’ to several of the bushes in my front garden.

My front garden in mid-October 2019 © Ricky Yates

This photograph, taken in October 2019, shows the result of my inaction 🙁 Therefore as well as pruning my vine, as explained in this post, in early November 2019, I severely cut back all the bushes in my front garden.

My front garden in early November 2019 © Ricky Yates

In the photograph above, you can see the result of my labours. As you can also see, because the bushes grew too large, they killed off the grass underneath, leaving bare patches of earth. Re-seeding these areas is one of my tasks in the coming days.

My front garden on 22nd April 2020 © Ricky Yates

But with the arrival of Spring, green shoots are appearing on all of the bushes reassuring me that I wasn’t too severe 😉

As I outlined in my previous post, since the middle of March I have been living in splendid isolation because of the measures taken by the Czech government, to counteract the Corona virus. However, this has given me the opportunity to do a lot of work in my garden, aided by dry, fine weather throughout April.

Snapped trellis and roses © Ricky Yates

Along with dead-heading and pruning all my roses, I have finally managed to repair this trellis alongside my front door, which was damaged on 10th February by Storm Ciara (UK), Storm Sabine (Czech Republic & Germany).

Trellis resurrected! © Ricky Yates

Once DIY shops, (or Hobby shops as Czechs call them), were allowed to re-open just before Easter, I was able to obtain a replacement metal bracket to re-attach the trellis to the wall of the house. You can see the new bracket in the photo. I also screwed a new wooden baton, (which you can’t see), across the base of the trellis, and resurrected the roses. 

Daffodils & tulips © Ricky Yates

One of the joys of this Spring has been to have these daffodils and tulips flowering, directly in front of the house. The bulbs were given to me by my daughter Christa at Christmas 2018. Last Spring, only the daffodils flowered, no doubt due to being planted too late. This Spring, they flowered beautifully.

Flowerbed & panels treated with wood stain © Ricky Yates

A couple of weeks later, just as the tulips were past their best, I also completely weeded and delineated the flower bed, and then applied wood stain to the panels below the enclosed verandah. This and the previous photo, show how dry everything is. The whole of the Czech Republic is currently experiencing drought conditions. Fortunately, this weekend as I write, we have had some most welcome rain.

I have also done plenty of work in my back garden. But that deserves another post 🙂