You may have heard me going on about the Hedgehog visitors to my garden. I’ve kind of built the garden around them with wilder areas and Hedgehog highways and ramps all over the place.
Tonight I was upstairs in the bathroom and I could hear a hell of a racket out the window, a really loud crunching sound. I sneaked on the security lights and grabbed a quick photo out of the bathroom.
Not one but two. How beautiful
There wasn’t one but two. I suspect they are from the same family as they are not known to comfortably share their dinner with another. I loved this it’s really made my day, as it shows just by making a few changes to your garden, leaving out a suitable food and fresh water, you can keep these rare animals safe and give them a foot up.
The fact we are bordering a large city with busy roads all around is another problem.
I’m just so glad I’m doing my little bit to try and preserve them. They are gorgeous 🦔
To many it probably looks a mess. To me it’s a place of happiness, it’s an art work being constantly touched up, it’s a labour of love. Six years after I started this garden it’s now finally starting to take shape and today I even had the wife’s seal of approval. And that crowns it for me.
My garden
People watch these shows on tv and instantly expect a beautiful renovated instant garden. This simply doesn’t happen.
My garden has been a massive experiment over the years. I’ve lost count of the amount of different plants I’ve placed only for each of them to fail after one season, then you have to ask the reasons why.
Our front garden is Sth facing so I have sun on that most of the day and plants like Lavender and lilac always display spectacularly, baskets and salvias love the front garden, but the front is not as advanced as my back garden, and I’m going to give it attention towards the end of this summer. I’m currently adding plants one at a time. The aim here is a typical country garden in the middle of a city. It’s a challenge.
Lavender and Californian lilac
However my back garden naturally is North facing, with only a glimmer of sunshine, so I have to plant here accordingly. Because of my neighbours, all who love concrete, and who have no green space, my garden naturally suffers from excess water run off from their properties.
I have introduced Hornbeam hedging only a few months ago that again will take time to mature, I have planted a number of ornamental trees to assist with drainage and things are looking positive. The plants I have in place are all bee friendly. We have loads of them as well as butterflies, lady birds and other insect life. I also have a small section near a small rockery area that I have left wilded, the flowers here blend in beautifully. I have a lot of wildlife in this garden, I have some small birds such as wrens going through the bushes that we have never seen here before, we have blackbirds, Robins, blue tits, finches and the pigeons and the magpies who are the antisocial members of the bird family. We also have the occasional Red Kite soar overhead, it’s amazing how the Pigeons and Magpies disappear when they are around. And naturally being the county of the Fox, they are also regular visitors.
And my garden is small, it’s only about 50ft square, and about a mile or so from the city centre.
I have a feral cat who has been a resident here long before we were, and she even chases the foxes who also enter the garden. Just take a look of her protecting the garden from a fox in this small video below:
Cat chasing Fox
The crowning glory is that we have regular hedgehog visitors. We leave nibbles and water out for them at night, we have introduced a highway through the garden with access from our property to others. We have ramps in place alongside the steps to help them about the property. Seeing we are right in the city we are probably one of only a few places of peace and serenity for them in this mad crazy town.
One of our regular visitors Highways and visitors
I really feel for those that don’t have access to a garden, it really is a place where you can lose yourself. It’s your own constantly developing work of art. I love having visitors to the garden, I love showing them what we have done and what we have planned, and I love helping people transform and achieve their little works of art. My garden has been a life saver for me, and allowed me to maintain my sanity when it all starts getting a bit too much.
Gardens should be compulsory, but unfortunately in this super high speed world, people just want everything low maintenance and that’s a shame.
Don’t even mention imitation grass to me – it should be banned.
The wife said, “You were right, you said it would take time, it looks lovely.” And that meant the world to me.
I purchased a pack of 5 of these cheap old garden lights from a local garden centre. I know if you buy cheap you pay twice but these did look quite reasonable. I know that most people only expect a season out of these lights however I try to look after mine, bringing them in during winter months when the garden isn’t being used and sunlight is non cooperative.
These were so full of promise, worked lovely for a few days and then two of them just didn’t work at all.
Broken garden solar lights
I took them apart and decided to test the batteries, both were showing 0.6v so i suspected the charge circuit was not working. When I put in a fully charged AA battery the lights came on but when exposed to light they remained on, so in a way I am right but it might be slightly more complicated. The battery isn’t charging, also the switch off is not occurring when exposed to light.
I’ve done a few tests using the multimeter, the solar panel is ok and giving a reasonable voltage under sunlight of 2.4v.
Solar panels working
The circuit board only consists of three components and two out of the three test ok. The issue seems to be with the YX8018 controller, the small four legged component in the pictures below.
Failed component circled
Failed YX8018 component
What is a YX8018 controller?
YX8018 is a high-performance solar lawn lamp boost control chip, which is suitable for a solar lawn lamp powered by a 1.2V rechargeable battery in series.
The main functions include charging control, boost drive, optical control, etc. The solar lawn lamp mainly uses the energy of the solar cell to work. When the sunlight shines on the solar cell during the day, the light energy is transformed into electric energy and stored in the battery, and then the battery provides power for the LED (light emitting diode) of the lawn lamp at night.
It has the advantages of safety, energy saving, convenience and environmental protection.It is applicable to solar products powered by one 1.2V rechargeable battery.
Conrad electronic SE
YX8018 circuit diagram
This appears to be the culprit after some basic tests have been carried out, there is about a 16% failure rate in these components so I don’t hold out a great deal of hope for the two that I’ve ordered. I shall eventually order a stack of them from China but for now I wanted some a bit quicker so I have ordered locally.
Two arrived….i now need three
Well, the two components I ordered have arrived today. But now I need three, as in the week another one has suffered the same issue. On top of that I have dropped one of the units and the solar panel has parted company. I’m now sourcing some liquid solder that may assist with getting this problem sorted. As is normal with me this little project has escalated due to my utter clumsiness. I must do better in the future. (Sounds just like one of my old school reports.)
In place ready to solder
I dismantled the two units I previously mentioned and followed pretty much the same process with each. Desolder, remove component, wick solder, put new component in place and then put a semi charged battery back in.
All soldered
I left the lights in the sun for a couple of hours and the charge has lifted from 0.8 to just over 1.1 volts so I’m happy that the charge circuit is now working.
The final test was to turn on and see what happens. Good news, nothing seen until I covered the solar panel and then the lights came on. Excellent, job done and more items saved from landfill. I must say I was really happy with my soldering on this job, it appears to be getting better.
Now working
I just need another component for that other one I broke in the week. However I won’t bother you with that one 😂
Here I was complaining about the weather due to a garden project I was undertaking and the time frame my wife has kindly put on it.
It was being severely hampered by the weather and on the odd occasional day I was able to do bits but the time scale was moving ever closer.
Well I finally managed to get the digging complete with a couple of inches more of mud removed and made as level as possible before more rain moved in.
Then I had an 800kg bag of MOT type one sub base layer delivered and this went down in a few hours and I was then able to hire a wacker plate to get it down nice and solid and even all over. I’ve put a wooden edge in as well that will eventually have some bare root Hornbeam hedging put in alongside it to form a softer border.
Sub base and wacker plate
But it rained again for days 🤷♂️
Pavers arrived
In the meantime myself and the wife went to a local garden centre and got an absolute bargain with the pavers, these were delivered the next day and I was able to place them roughly where I wanted them to be before cementing. Then guess what? Yes you are right it has rained pretty much from the 28th March right up to a few days ago the 11th April.
Pavers roughly in place
We’ve had some sun the last couple of days and the surface of the garden has dried off a bit. The patio area has dried off quite considerably so on the 14th April I was finally able to get all the pavers cemented into position, I was able to do a first rough cut of the grass and generally have a little tidy up. There was an awkward period when the works supervisor (Alfie, our dog and head of security) intervened and decided to sit on a paver I was cementing, but talks took place and strike action was avoided when a chewy treat was supplied.
Industrial action was avoided
I’ve ordered an 800kg bag of pea shingle to finish the job so I’m hopeful the time scale will be met. it was a good day.
Pavers cemented in place
This morning the 15th we have had torrential rain, hailstones and a thunderstorm, woo am I pleased I got that cementing done yesterday, you bet I am. I just hope it had time to cure to a state where the down pour hasn’t affected it too much. I’ll check it out later, and I’ll just have to refrain from using the pavers for another 48hrs or so.
Note: I’ve just checked and the cement has set nicely, I’ll leave it another day and it should be all good 👍 we now await the pea shingles arrival.
Fast forward to the 17th after yet more rain has fallen and I now have 800kg bag of pea shingle occupying part of my driveway. I have ordered far too much, however it means I will be able to prioritise a couple of other garden projects that I have recently put on the back burner.
Guess what? More rain but I’m not giving up until these stones are in place.
A couple of hours later I’ve put the shingle in place, first a layer that I’ve then stamped down and then another layer on top to bring it all up to level across all the pavers. I must admit it has come up quite well.
Pea shingle in place
I’ve finished it off with a small circular paver for the wife’s stone toadstool that has been a feature in any garden we have occupied since we first met, as well as some decorative fencing and lighting with 15 newly planted Hornbeam hedgerow plants. I have a vision of having a nice hedgerow line down here within the next couple of years as well as being a natural source of drainage for the this part of the garden, that naturally gets very wet due to neighbouring gardens being concrete wastelands.
Hornbeam hedgerow and decorative fencing
I’m very pleased with the result, it’s on time and the wife is now off my back, and she’s very happy, phew 😥
Thanks for following this little project, stay safe and stay happy.
It’s just gone four in the morning, the birds are awakening and I’m stuck in an office in Leicestershire awaiting my next call out of this long night shift.
Despite weather reports being favourable it has been heaving down with rain for the past few hours , and it doesn’t look as if it’s going to let off at any time today.
It’s a rainy night in Leicestershire
This is pretty much a post about gardening, another activity I like to get involved in, and at the moment I have a project underway that was pretty much weather dependent.
I have begun the digging out of a small part of the garden in preparation for laying a small patio area. Our garden is pretty much clay based under the grass and to be honest as a result of that drainage is not brilliant. We never used to have issues with drainage due to there being 12 trees in situ that the previous owner had planted, he never looked after them and they became diseased. These sucked every bit of moisture from the garden and never gave us any issues with pooling water.
Turf removal Digging out
Fast forward a couple of years and those trees had to be removed due to the aforementioned disease, right down to the roots. Now during the normal British rain season ( most of the year ) we have pools developing around the garden. We are replanting a number of smaller trees but it’s going to be some time before they are drinking the quantities of rain water we usually get here in the East Midlands.
I chose this week to do my digging as it was forecast to be the driest week in a while and there was a sufficient chance of me getting all the digging done and getting the sub base in place before any inclement weather arrived.
I sit here this morning cursing so called weather forecasts.
I have been doing work between night shifts spreading it out and was so pleased with progress thus far. I removed all turf yesterday and today started digging out to about 15 c/m and started to level the area out. All excess soil was being spread around the flower beds of the front and rear garden so nothing was going to waste at all.
I stopped work on the garden at about 4 pm yesterday, well happy with progress telling the wife I had about another 2 days of work to do on levelling before we could start to get the sub base in place and compacted prior to paving, hopefully the job would be completed by next Sunday.
That’s not going to happen.
Looking at my security camera in the garden I can see that the patio area has now taken on the look of a pond and later today I half expect to see a couple of ducks taking residence.
The moral of this story is , weather forecasts don’t work. It’s not yet an art despite all the technological advances over the years.
Foxes Den 
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