Buying a Pressure Washer

 Fun with a pressure washer

I'd recommend buying a pressure washer. There’s no way I could have guessed I would have so much fun with a high power burst of water. 

To be thorough, the process is slow, messy, wet and repetitive. Just the type of job I like. Over the years I have given the paths and driveway a cursory going over with a hosepipe but over time moss, dirt grass and weeds have taken a hold and even a good sweeping with a stiff brush wasn’t doing the trick. 

It’s taken three full days to work my way around the concrete but the results are amazing. I was thinking of getting the driveway resurfaced this year but it can wait now. Apart from the multitude of cracks it’s come up like new and will be less slippery in the winter months. I’ve also cleaned an unpainted cement rendered wall which has also come up like new.

Even sweeping before I started I still collected at least 10 compost bags of slop from the clean. I’ll add this to the compost bin.

I did a bit of research to get the best pressure washer for my needs. Apart from the drive, walls and paths I will be using it to clean my car, wheelie bins, guttering and some brickwork. One tip is to get the best one you can afford and luckily that was €100 and I found there are loads of makes that were suitable within that budget that had five star ratings for their power and attachments.

The washer only weighs around 10kg so is easy to lift, portable and easily stored. There’s a place to put the detergent, but as the power is good at 130 bar I didn’t need to use any for the jobs I was doing. I also got a decking brush which will come in handy as I have a few square metres of it near my shed. The brush is contained so it doesn’t spray water and mess everywhere. 

Pressure Washer Uses

When researching and buying a machine think about how you will use it, what other things may you need it for once you have it? I’ll be cleaning the plastic on my polytunnel in winter. Check the specification is suitable and has the power you need.

BAR: This is the force at which the water is pushed out at, the higher the force the easier it is to remove dirt.

Light Use – 100 bar:

• Garden furniture
• Garden tools
• Motorbikes
• Bicycles
• Rubbish bins

Medium Use – 110 to 130 bar

• Car Cleaning
• Boats
• Lawnmowers
• Fencing
• Guttering

Heavy Use – 130 bar +

• Brickwork
• Decking
• Patios
• Concrete driveways

As mentioned I went for the 130 bar as I knew my jobs would be demanding.

Other considerations such as water flow should be taken into consideration but most of us have more than enough pressure to cope.

If you intend just to use it to clean your car, then you the lower end of the range is more than good enough. I’d still be tempted to get a more powerful machine and hold the lance a bit further away so the paintwork doesn’t get damaged. You never know when you might need that bit of extra power.

Power is one thing, however it is important to look at other area such as hose length. Some pressure washers can be heavy so a longer hose can be useful so that you don’t have to carry or wheel it around when doing the car. Most entry models come with a 4m pressure hose at least as standard but I managed to get one with a 5m hose and pleased I did.

There are a multitude of accessories, many of which you might never use.  This might bump up the price of the washer at the expense of power so if you start with a basic kit of a good spray attachment for the lance you can’t go wrong. It might be an idea to check if the manufacturers do more accessories if needed so you can pick and choose at a later date. All of the products come with a one or two year guarantee so at this price you won’t need to take out the extra guarantee larger retailers try to push on you to bump up their profits.

When it comes to using the lance - Let the force be with you. You will soon find out the best way to clean.  If you haven’t invested in a power washer I’d recommend it as I’ll probably use more than I would a vacuum cleaner.

Ash Diebck

 Earthstar Fungus

We all love a good mystery. 

Liam the barber in Buncrana set a few gardeners a quest to find out what was growing under his beech tree. The item in question is a dark brown, tulip bulb shaped object, which set us looking in the wrong direction trying to find out of it came from the tree or what type of bulb it could be. Cutting into the object revealed a soft centre with no sign of the usual fleshy scales you would find in a bulb (think onions) Eliminating bulbs from the inquiry made identifying the object a bit easier. Take into consideration the time of year and location we soon realised it isn’t a bulb, it’s a fungi. Geastrum or ‘Earthstar Fungus’. It’s a lovely thing to find but apart from the satisfaction of identification there’s no payoff as it’s classed as inedible. Although it is eaten by the tribal peoples of Madhya Pradesh in India.

Identifying things in the countryside is fun and can also be extremely important. We can spot signs of trouble before it spreads but unfortunately sometimes it can be a bit too late in the case of an ash tree disease that’s hit all of Europe.

Ash Die Back

Ash die-back came to Ireland about seven years ago as a result of planting infected trees that were imported.  Leitrim had the first reports of this disease and the Department of Agriculture tried to stop the spread through eradication and confinement programmes, which didn’t work.

What is ash dieback?

Ash dieback, also known as Chalara dieback of ash, is a serious disease that is killing ash across Europe. Ash is a very important tree both ecologically and culturally so this disease is causing great concern about the damage it will do.

Ash dieback is caused by the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. This disease was first spotted in central Europe in 1992 and has since swept westwards. It was first identified in nursery stock then in the wider environment in 2013 although it could have been in the country much longer.

Symptoms

• Dark lesions – often long, thin and diamond-shaped – appear on the trunk at the base of dead side shoots
• The tips of shoots become black and shrivelled
• Blackened, dead leaves – may look a bit like frost damage
• The veins and stalks of leaves, normally pale in colour, turn brown
• Saplings have dead tops and side shoots
• In mature trees, dieback of twigs and branches in the crown, often with bushy growth further down the branches where new shoots have been produced
• In late summer and early autumn (July to October), small white fruiting bodies can be found on blackened leaf stalks.

Causes

The disease is spread by spores from the fruiting bodies of the fungus produced on fallen ash leaves. These airborne spores can disperse naturally via wind over tens of kilometres

Prior to the ban in October 2012 on the movement of ash trees, spread over longer distances was likely to have been via the movement of infected ash plants.

Klaus Laitenberger from Milkwood Farm in Leitrim feels that not many people seem to be aware of this devastation. When he shows infected trees to farmers on their land they are often unaware and shocked.

Klaus also thinks it’s too late to save the trees and says in his Newsletter. “What it means is that nearly all ash trees will disappear in Ireland, just like the elms did a few decades ago.  The ash is our most common native tree and I couldn’t even guess how many millions of ash trees there are in Ireland.  The thought that probably 95% of them will be gone is beyond my imagination, but unfortunately this is the reality.”

He continues “The environmental, economic and also cultural effects of wiping out this species are monumental.  We point our fingers to the forest fires in Brazil and Bolivia – burning down the lungs of the Earth, but yet quietly ignore the death of our own carbon sinks – our millions of ash trees that will leave us within a couple of decades.”

We urgently need to plant more broad leaf trees in our landscape.  Farmers should be made aware of the problem and incentivised to plant alternative trees.

Teagasc are doing some research on the issue by developing ash tree genetic resources with resistance to ash dieback. If you think your trees are infected check out www.teagasc.ie  If you have a farm, you can also get information for tree planting  and other farm related projects via the Inishowen Upland Farmers Project.

The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) has just released a fee tree planting PDF. You can read or download it here: https://treegrowing.tcv.org.uk/grow

Lazivore - Gardening Without Effort - Easier than concreting everything

 Planters on concrete can be more work than a lawn

I like home grown veggies and work smart without much effort to get it. I’m not alone and someone has now come up with a name for gardening without effort, Sami Grover coined the word ‘Lazivore’ which is a variation on the similar word "locavore" which  relates to a person whose diet consists only or principally of locally grown or produced food. 

Locavore proved so popular that it was unveiled as the 2007 Word of the Year at the Oxford University Press. I’m not sure Lazivore will get the same accolade but that doesn’t matter, most Lazivores wouldn’t be bothered with that sort of thing.

For years if anyone asked me what was the best way to get a stress free low maintenance garden I would smile and say “Concrete it” I found it amusing for a while but came to the conclusion being so glib wasn’t helpful as concrete also needs looking after occasionally. Things get more time consuming if you have containers placed on a concrete yard, this can be more labour intensive than a lawn to look after in summer. There are also the environmental aspects to consider such as wildlife and water run off so I don’t recommend concrete anymore.

But what can we do?  A ‘No Maintenance’ garden doesn’t really exist so as long as we are aware of that we have a base line to start. There will always be something to do even in the best planned garden, but with a bit of thought we can keep the work to a minimum. There’s really quite a short window of time in life where we can give all of our time and energy to the garden. 

If you look at stages in life you’ll see what I mean

• When you are working
• When raising a family
• Gardening in older age
• Gardening with a disability
• When new to gardening or not interested
• When renting or renting out a property with a garden
• For non-gardeners who have to look after a garden

Most of those examples highlight the fact that gardening is either fitted in in-between other activities or ignored all together, which would be OK if you were living in an upstairs flat.

Keep it Simple

Use large containers for planting as they won’t dry out as quickly. Small ones require a lot of attention in summer.

Keep tender plants to a minimum. These require seasonal tasks such as lifting, winter wrapping, moving to a protected environment or annual propagation. Instead, look for plants that are deemed fully hardy which can be left outdoors year round.

Bedding plants and temporary plantings are very pretty but hard work. Moving away from bedding to borders with permanent plantings would help eliminate this dependency. Wildflower annuals are an easier option and will look after themselves

Choose the right plant for the right place. Don’t insist on growing rhododendrons on a chalky soil, or bog plants in a windswept dry garden.

Buying large specimen plants and trees may seem like a quick route to an instant garden but aftercare can be more time consuming. Younger plants will often establish in half the time and require less attention to watering and staking

Choose slower growing hedging plants such as box (buxus) yew (Taxus baccata) or holly (Ilex aquifolium) when planting or replacing hedges.

Be relaxed about the lawn. Cutting down on weeding, feeding and moss control will give the lawn a visual patchwork but will often stay greener for longer when stressed by drought or waterlogging. It is also more likely to support a greater variety of wildlife as well.

Borders and weed control

Replace some perennials with slow growing shrubs, planting through a membrane.  Overlay this with attractive mulch such as bark or gravel and it may be several seasons before weeding or topping up of the mulch is required.

Most new weeds growing now won’t be too much of a threat to the vegetable patch or borders as the plants you have are big enough to look after themselves. Pull out the larger ones and for the smaller ones invest in a Dutch hoe. You won’t even need to bend down! The dry weather and heat will dry any chopped seedlings as they sit on the soil.

If you fail- give up. Only grow what thrives and needs no looking after. Choosing plants that fend for them will reduce the need for you to intervene which will give you more time to cover other important issues in your life. Mine at the moment is napping on my sun lounger.

History and Folklore of Yew Trees

A mature yew tree in a cemetery

A good few years ago was having a lot of trouble opening a jar of pickled gherkins. My wrist was sore and try as I might I just couldn’t get the traction on the lid to screw it off. A wise old salt came by and told me a technique which they claimed never failed. 

I’ll share it with you now.

First stand upright with legs slightly apart. Imagine you are an oak tree and your roots are penetrating the ground and collecting energy from the earth. Channel that energy into your muscles and hold it there for a second. This burst of natural energy emanating from the limbs will give you the strength to twist off the lid the very little effort as natural forces are doing the hard work.

It’s stood me in good stead over the years but I have found a better way – even better than stabbing the lid with a fork. Simply use a bottle opener to release the pressure of the lid until the safety seal pops. The lid will come of so easily. I now find this is much quicker and doesn’t entail me having to summon energy from the earth’s crust and bothering Mother Nature.

Yew Trees

The wise old salt who suggested the jar opening method wasn’t the first person to summon the earth’s energy for their own benefit. Centuries ago Druids planted yew trees in pagan temple sites and burial grounds as they felt the trees were really good at absorbing the energy of their dead and linked it to immortality. 

 

The Druids regarded yew as sacred and planted it close to their temples. As early Christians often built their churches on these consecrated sites, the association of yew trees with churchyards was perpetuated. The Christians felt the trees were “a holy symbol” because the heartwood is red and the sapwood is white symbolizing the body and blood of Christ. 

I’ll add here that there are no real facts about yew trees in cemeteries, most of the research is inconclusive. This is great for me because I can just make things up.

It does make sense to have the trees as a windbreak to protect the buildings. In 1307 King Edward I ordered yew trees to be planted in churchyards to protect churches from gale damage. Robert Turner, writing in 1644, suggested that yew absorbed the vapours produced by putrefaction. They were also said to ward off evil spirits, which might refer to masking the ‘evil’ smells more than the spirits.

We do know that yew trees can live for over 1000 years and some have even been found to live 5000 years. Most older trees are sole survivors of medieval villages. 

Yews were usually planted in twos, one at the lych-gate, the funeral entrance to the churchyard, and the other near the church door. Today, two lines of trimmed Irish yews sometimes mark this pathway, with additional yews planted next to raised tombs or graves.

Yew trees were sometimes planted in acts of sanctification, close to where people eventually hoped to be laid to rest.  

There are other theories. 

The wood was used to make longbows and keeping the trees protected in an enclosed cemetery kept the branches away from livestock which could damage the trunks causing them to be unsuitable for the bows as they would be gnarled and twisted. Maybe the trees were kept away from the livestock as all but the red seed coating of the tree is poisonous. 

The theory about making bows falls a bit flat when you think how many trees were needed to make the millions of bows needed for armies. It’s more likely the wood for these was imported from Europe to cope with the demands. Woodland tree management would have been far more precise and labour intensive compared to today and the trees would have had their side branches removed to keep the trunks strong and straight. 

Value to wildlife

Regardless of the trees fables and legends they are valuable to wildlife. Yew made into hedges in particular is incredibly dense, offering protection and nesting opportunities for many birds. The tiny goldcrest and firecrest nest in broadleaf woodland with a yew understorey.  The fruit is eaten by birds such as the blackbird, thrush and fieldfare, and small mammals such as squirrels and dormice. The leaves are eaten by caterpillars of the satin beauty moth and they are a haven for spiders.