Villagers were met by the surreal sight of two guys bent over almost double, not unlike Burke and Hare, shiftily rolling an upside down tree root ball along the main village road.

Last summer we went to Wells-next-the-sea and visited some of the 'open gardens'. As usual they were all really good and most of them quite compact. We were particularly struck by the way one fairly small garden compartmentalised itself into separate areas almost like rooms.

The seed was sown (sorry) for us to create a hidden corner within our garden and when we got home we looked at our garden and decided to use a corner to create just such a room.

During the long time of inactivity towards this task we visited several National Trust properties and started to develop a penchant for their stumperies. We were really taken by the Stumpery at Ickworh. Now we knew what we wanted to be inside our new room in the garden....a stumpery. Hence I started in my quest to obtain stumps starting as I did in last weeks blog.

Now the first thing that we needed was a doorway to our room. A room is not a room unless you can enter it through a doorway. We considered several alternatives for this from buying a wooden trellis arch to making something ourselves and to bending over the native plants in that corner to create a natural archway.

The wooden trellis arches are too expensive and the folded over flora just looked like it needed watering rather urgently so we decided to create an arch from scratch and as cheap as possible.
This meant a trip to my flying farmer supply guy. He lives at the end of the village and, well actually you can read about him on a previous blog called "The Plot Thickens".
Having braved his Alsatians I bought a few large wooden poles and set about building a wooden arch.

I drew up a plan on a bit of A4 paper (I couldn't find any envelopes with decent backs) and to my quite considerable amazement it looks alright!....

I've used bolts to hold the thing together just in case children visiting the cottage think it is a climbing frame, which I would quite understand.

Now initially after I erected this thing I decided to create a Hazel hurdle fence to cordon off the room, a wall to my room I suppose.

Having cut many very long coppiced hazel  branches from my own garden I set about planting the uprights.
I had got to about half the height that I was aiming for when I ran out of the hazel wood. Now I started using an unknown tree that we had cut down during January.
Well the hazel fence had already looked in pain and by the time I had finished the whole thing looked like it had a strangulated hernia, twisted and contorted as if in agony.

I decided to put it out of it's misery and killed the fence off dismantling it the very next day. It was so shockingly bad that I couldn't even bring myself to photograph it and this from a guy that has taken photos of Otter Poo and a bloated dead deer floating in a lake!

We needed a new plan. This 'room' will be seen from the dining room by our guests and so we needed something special...

Trawling through the web we happened upon a fedge supplier. Mmmm, I thought that spell check wouldn't like that. 'Fedge' that's right... F.E.D.G.E. Fedge.

Those in the know will be aware that a fedge is both a fence and a hedge or to be more accurate a living fence. In our case made from willow.

Having paid my money the Fedge kit duly arrived comprising of many Willow canes and several pages of instructions. I decided not to disregard the instructions as I normally do with Ikea furniture but to actually follow them closely. Spell check doesn't like the name Ikea either, I reckon the Ikea catalogue would scramble spell checks brain's with it's FYRKANTIG (candles) and it's KNUTSTORP (chair) there would be red underscoring in abundance.

Although interestingly it hasn't raised an eyebrow with Fyrkantig but does suggest that I must mean 'Shortstop' for KNUTSTORP.

I digress, back to the fedge, I worked for the best part of the day working on this wall of willow, firstly removing the turfs and laying the mulching material .....




 Then planting the uprights.....


Next were the weavers which held all the uprights together by binding to them on the horizontal.






Now came the tricky bit, the weaving of the 'weavers'. Firstly to the left then back along to the right. This was the most time consuming bit of it all.

The thing was taking shape now and my room was forming.

The overall effect will be a light fluttery willow leaf wall in the summer months and during the winter it will open the view up into the room and our Stumpery.

The views from within the room towards the house and cottage will then disapear in the summer making this a great hiding place for the young children that come to stay in the Holiday cottage. We feel sure that they will love it.

The final bit was the creation of the Stumpery, where I turned one stump into four.

To do this I volunteered to help some neighbours (Neil & Julie) that had just moved into a bungalow two doors down from us. They were chopping tree trunks down and I asked if I could have the root balls. It was a day later before it occurred to me that actually I should offer to assist in digging out the roots rather than expect them to do it, I sometimes have tunnel vision when an idea worms it's way out of this tiny brain. They were a little stumped at first (did you see what I did there?!!) but it seemed like a good deal so they agreed.

Photos courtesy of Julie.

This was a lovely way to get to know new neighbours and we spent the lion share of the day together, digging and chewing the cud about ourselves and our plans.

They themselves have taken on a garden that looked very similiar to my allotment when I obtained it. When we were done I invited them over to see the Stumpery and I think that they may have actually been reasonably impressed.
I did donate to them my spare willow canes which they planned to use by a ditch at the end of their property to make a similar but smaller 'fedge'.

That said Neil had already seen where I was placing these stumps as he had to help me get them from his house along the road to ours. All we had to do this with was his little old foldable sack trolley.
It was half the size of the root balls it was carrying.

Villagers were met by the surreal sight of two guys bent over almost double, not unlike Burke and Hare, shiftily rolling an upside down tree root ball along the main village road. This was only enhanced by the need to make a right hand turn signal so a car coming in the opposite direction could tell which way we intended to turn.
No one flinched an eye lid. I feel I have turned native as this was definitely considered NFN...

Normal For Norfolk.

It was a very hot day, even for June but this was still March and so I got hot dirty and thirsty but soon my Stump gained a second then a third and finally a little runt, the fourth. This culminated in the end product our Stumpery Room.....

It has a look about it of a group of trolls on a picnic. I have to say that I feel the photos don't do it justice and that it has a quiet place feel about it.

So there you have it by use of a bit of willowology and good neighbourliness I have created something a little odd at the end of my garden and who wouldn't want something a little odd at the end of their garden?







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