Working outside the chateau

Oscar who enjoys working in the fresh air outside is always the guy for clearing weeds and bushes and stripping ivy from trees and old walls. This week he is happily listening to his music and clearing the old wall that runs around the back of the chateau to the old gate and lake. At points the weeds, thorns and bushes stretched 10 metres into the chateau land. You can see where they came to in the first photo - it is the darker area. Pascal and the monster digger have cleared all of this away now. All that is left is mostly ivy. Ivy is awful, it might look nice but it is totally invasive and destructive. The good thing about it is that the roots don't go too deep so it is relatively easy to rip out and clear. However when it has been growing up trees for years it becomes very hard and thick, much harder to get off.  We have now 

cleared pretty much all of the inside of the wall so today we started on the outside. Here it is also very overgrown but not as deep as it was inside the wall. For the first time in many many years it is now possible to stand on the outside of the wall and see the chateau across the fields. Over the next 12 months we are planting a good durable grass in these fields to form parkland. Then we will plant lots of trees to landscape it - I have a great book about Capability Brown!