Department: Turf
I cut the glasshouse landscape again - the borders at the front of the glasshouse. Then after break we cut the old rose garden, 3 of us worked on that, the beds here were circular we worked from middle outwards. Two of us concentrated on the circular sections and treated them as semi circles first as half & half / dark & light. One of us concentrated on the straight paths in between. Then one went round the straight outside edges to finish off.
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| Photo 1: Half and half semi-circle in the Jubilee Rose Garden. |
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| Photo 2: Looking at the different parts of a rotary mower. |
The spark plug (under the red top at the front) gets disconnected every time we left the machine for safety of someone inexperienced turning it on, also if we were needed to clear around the blades. Choke is put on the first time round to get it going, after that it should come on whilst it's in full throttle mode.
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| Photo 3: A raised lawn area. |
On slightly raised lawns like above, it is important to raise the machine a bit when near the edge and slow it down, so it doesn't actually go off the edge or it can scalp it.
We also cut Top Terrace - for this one it was important for both beds to mirror each other. Both sides are not identical.
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| Photo 4: Symmetrical looking but not lawn areas on Top Terrace. |
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| Photo 5: Diagram of how to cut area. |
So 1. X (at the bottom near the middle in Photo 5) is where I start. I go round the edge of the bed first. For the long straight edges I did them half and half, it took two stripes to do the outer edge and three for the inside back one.
When I did the 2nd inside back one (in Photo 6) I did all the diagonal stripes. All the way up, came back down on the inside long edge to finish that off then went around the whole bed again (in the same direction I went around with the first time).
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| Photo 6 |
Then it was on ride ons to do paths and an area where they had a marquee in Wilson's Woods.
Tip on pouring petrol into lawn mower with the small red plastic containers they have the fuel in - to tip it from the side, it's more controlled stops it from sloshing out all over the place.
