Hedge gap in-filling by underplanting - Six on Saturday

Since we removed our old greenhouse, we've exposed a four-metre length of the old hawthorn hedge at the northern boundary.

Although it has quite healthy upper growth and is still making good shows of blossom and berries, this hedge is very old and spans the length of the boundary which we took over when we bought the slice of additional land to the west to extend our garden.

Amateurish attempts have been made in the past to 'lay' the hedge by partially cutting through some of the trunks and bending them over to the horizontal so they maintain a growing connection with the tree, but then sprout more upward branches to fill in the lower areas. 

However, what with this poor quality laying and the lower part of the hedge being shaded by our old greenhouse for seven years, the base of the hawthorn hedge is very open and provides little or no low-level cover and wind protection to the garden now that the greenhouse has gone.  

And hawthorn is deciduous, so it will be even worse during the winter months when there are no leaves on the upper branches.

large gaps lowdown in the hedge behind the retaining wall
(photo taken before we moved the fig tree here)

Although winds from the north are not too common here, when they do arrive they're usually strong and very cold, so we thought we'd try to fill the lower gaps to protect the garden, and with a longer-term view of creating a full-height evergreen screen.

Repairing a failed Double-glazed Window Unit

Our living room sealed double-glazed unit has failed.  The sealing has been breached and allowed moist air to enter which has become trapped and resulted in mist patches and water droplets condensing on the inside faces of the glass panels.

you'll need to look very closely to see the water droplets between
 the panes at the bottom, and the line of misting near the top...

close-up of the bottom right corner ...

and in the centre...

Last year we also had a failure of a similar sealed double-glazed panel in our bedroom window.   In this case, we ordered a new glazed unit from a manufacturer around 80 miles away, and picked it up ourselves in the back of the car.  We then swapped it out with the failed panel, which we took to the local tip.  The new panel was less than £100, so a reasonably cost-effective DIY repair.

However, this same process wasn't an option this time around because the failed window in the living room is much larger, so it wouldn't fit in the car and the manufacturer we used last time won't deliver so far from their base.  Other online glaziers wanted ridiculous sums of money to manufacture a new unit to my dimensions, and anyway only a very few offered a delivery service.

We don't want to spend too much money on this window repair, because I think all the windows on the house will need replacing within the next few years anyway.  They're at least thirty and maybe even forty years old.

So I decided to repair this failed window unit myself, or at least to improve its appearance, by trying to remove the trapped water from between the panels.   

Assuming we don't break the glass, then the worst that can happen is the repair doesn't work, so it's definitely worth a try.

on a white theme ... Six on Saturday

New Zealand holly bush, olearia macrodonta ...

click on any photo for a larger image ...