Isle of Wight Mini-tractor & digger hire by Tim Brayford Landscapes

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Mini-tractor for hire

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Mini-tractor & digger hire

When to hire a mini tractor

Otherwise known as subcompact tractors they have the versatility of larger agricultural tractors on a smaller, lighter frame. They are generally a good choice for areas of up to five acres, especially for irregularly shaped gardens and paddocks or where the access ways are too narrow or the ground is too soft for modern farm machinery to use. A mini tractor can lift approximately half its weight, carry a weight greater than its own, and push or pull several times more than its own weight. Like bigger agricultural tractors they feature a category 1 three-point hitch, PTO shafts , an external hydraulic spool valve and four-wheel drive, they are diesel fuelled.

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Rotary Cultivating

What attachments are available?

The range of attachments available for mini-tractors broadly reflects those available for agricultural tractors but in a scaled down form.

 

When to hire a wheeled mini-digger

Wheeled mini-diggers bridge the gap between work previously done laboriously by hand and the heavy plant found on construction sites and civil engineering projects.  When access ways are too restricted or the ground too soft for larger machines is where these smaller machines are an advantage.  Compared to similar sized tracked machines they have a quicker work rate for grading off soil and moving earth or gravel around a site without the need of a separate dumper truck.

Tim Brayford Landscapes Mini-digger for hire

All our equipment comes with an operator, we are unable to offer self-drive hire at this time. NO VAT to add, no extra fuel or delivery charges, minimum charges apply – please see our terms & conditions

Please email timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com to enquire about availability and make a booking and visit our website to learn more about  our garden design & construction services

 

Isle of Wight Garden Gallery 14 by Tim Brayford Landscapes

 

Tim Brayford Landscapes – A bee enjoys this flowering pear

Tim Brayford Landscapes – An informally shaped wildlife pond

Tim Brayford Landscapes – An attractive grouping of planted pots

Tim Brayford Landscapes – A newly planted woodland

Tim Brayford Landscapes – The attractive blue flowers of ground covering periwinkle

Tim Brayford Landscapes were established in 1980 and we are British Association of Landscape Industries National Award Winners for Garden Design & Construction. We have a wide experience of landscaping works ranging from the initial ideas through to making gardens and their aftercare.

We recommend an initial verbal consultation and recommendation report preparatory to forwarding costings for your project, both for the building of entirely new gardens or for the addition of individual features to a well established one. Typically this may take the form of tree, shrub & herbaceous border planting, wildlife gardens & ponds, wildflower meadows, lawn seeding & turfing, raised beds, water gardens & pools,installation of irrigation systems, ground shaping & cultivation. We also undertake specialist maintenance work such as fruit, shrub & rose pruning.

To learn more about what we have to offer please visit our website, email  timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or call 07890869918

 

Chemical Free Weed Control by Tim Brayford Landscapes Isle of Wight

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Periwinkles are a popular ground covering plant

Chemical Free Weed Control

Geotextile membranes were one of the great gardening innovations of the 20^th century promoted as a chemical free low maintenance weed control solution, used in conjunction with decorative mulches such as bark flakes or gravel.

Generally unsuitable for use in an herbaceous border or where bulbs are planted membranes are primarily found for separation of gravel surfaces from the underlying soil and within mass plantings of shrubs and trees.

In the short term geotextiles can be highly effective at providing a low cost/low maintenance option for these areas but it would be a mistake to believe that they are maintenance free. Typically the kind of issues that may arise are birds disturbing decorative bark mulches thus exposing the underlying fabric and the effect of strong gusts of wind actually lifting the fabric away from where it has been placed.

Geotextiles are popularly used for weed control

This is far less of an issue where gravel mulches have been used but other problems can arise. Despite claims to the contrary by the manufacturers in our experience these membranes impede the exchange of air within the soil resulting in the ground becoming compacted, anaerobic, slimy and poorly drained with little beneficial earthworm activity apparent. This does not represent good growing conditions for healthy plants to thrive in.

In the longer term further negative impacts have become apparent. Whenever a mulch is used it will over a period of time trap wind-blown dusty soil particles and seeds, often those of the most vigorous invasive weeds such as bramble, nettle or couch grass. Under these circumstances ideal germination conditions may arise and these seedlings will soon anchor themselves to the membrane and worse still eventually root through it into the soil beneath.

Weedy & neglected, the plants have failed to thrive despite the use of a membrane

Dealing with this kind of scenario, especially once the perennial weeds are well established negates any benefit derived from the use of the geotextile with the most likely solution being to grub everything out and replant afresh.

A solution that appears to work best is to plant quite densely and to omit the membrane, using  a decently thick layer of composted bark instead.  Ground smothering plants such as periwinkles are a particularly useful way of filling the gaps in and around other trees and other shrubs. The planting needs to be regularly inspected and any losses made good, the bark needs to be topped up as necessary and any incipient weeds dealt with before they have become established.

Please visit our Tim Brayford Landscapes  website email timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or phone 07890 869918 to discuss how we can assist you with your landscape garden project.

 

 

 

Isle of Wight Garden Gallery 13 by Tim Brayford Landscapes

 

Tim Brayford Landscapes – An attractive summer border flanks natural stone paving

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Free range hens enliven this country garden

Tim Brayford Landscapes-Bluebells in springtime

Tim Brayford Landscapes – A cowslip in April

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Pots can be decorative even when empty

Tim Brayford Landscapes were established in 1980 and we are British Association of Landscape Industries National Award Winners for Garden Design & Construction. We have a wide experience of landscaping works ranging from the initial ideas through to making gardens and their aftercare.

We recommend an initial verbal consultation and recommendation report preparatory to forwarding costings for your project, both for the building of entirely new gardens or for the addition of individual features to a well established one. Typically this may take the form of tree, shrub & herbaceous border planting, wildlife gardens & ponds, wildflower meadows, lawn seeding & turfing, raised beds, water gardens & pools, installation of irrigation systems, ground shaping & cultivation. We also undertake specialist maintenance work such as fruit, shrub & rose pruning.

To learn more about what we have to offer please visit our website, email  timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or call 07890869918

 

The Strawberry Field by Tim Brayford Landscapes Isle of Wight

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Strawberry

The Strawberry Field

The sun comes out and I close my eyes as I sit on the garden bench. The warmth seeps into my arms and is chased away with a slight breeze. I sigh and reach down to the punnet and lift out a strawberry. It looks wonderful, deep red with a fresh green calyx, I bite into it and …. nothing. No burst of flavour on my tongue, no unctuous juice to run down my chin just a hard white centre. How disappointing. I was talked into buying them by No.4 son who, with the optimism of youth, thought he was getting strawberries.

 When I was younger,  (quite a lot younger!) I worked in the strawberry fields in early summer. It sounds idyllic, it was anything but. The first job in early spring was to put down the straw, by hand over about three acres. The boss always got the easy job, he would drive up and down the southern sloping field on his Ransom Crawler tractor stopping to chuck bales of straw off the back of the trailer. Then a couple of the blokes would come out with hay forks, split open the bales and spread them across the rows of plants. Then the three full time women, Carole, Sylvia and Ruby, would start the arduous task of ‘tucking in’. There was a knack to it, you held the leaves and hard green berries in the left hand, cupped upwards and pulled the straw around the plant with the right, swirling round to get the other side. The ladies worked on their knees, using old cushions for padding but I preferred to straddle a row of plants and work doubled over. I could go all day like this and still prefer to weed the garden this way. One year the boss obtained some cheap straw and we found out why, it was short cut barley and stuck itself into our hands and arms where it festered. Still, didn’t bother him did it!

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Ransomes Crawler

 When the berries started to ripen the part-timers joined us. I would be organizing up to twelve ladies, some of whom had never had experience of commercial picking. One year there was a crowd of ladies whose husbands were friends of the boss, they thought it would be a good laugh and lots of free berries. The first day started with a promise to be hot, I was wearing my usual jeans and a cotton shirt, with sleeves, and a bush hat. One rather vocal lady derided my choice of clothing and proceeded to strip off to shorts and a bikini top. Her friends did the same, extoling the fabulous sun. We worked for three hours before morning break. They sat in the sun and ate the damaged berries that we were allowed to keep for ourselves. I sat in the shade of a tree. By three in the afternoon it had gone a bit quiet, the banter between the ladies had stopped. By four o’clock the sun and berries had taken their toll and most of the ladies were ‘re-visiting’ their earlier meal of strawberries along the hedgerow. Shoulder blades and lower legs were a livid red and tops were being put back on with amazing caution. They walked off the field on that first day very gingerly, arms held away from the body to avoid anything touching. They didn’t come back the next day.

            So the next time you buy a punnet of strawberries remember the work that’s gone into growing them, oh yes….. and make sure they’re British and in season!

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Strawberries

Please visit our Tim Brayford Landscapes  website or contact us by email timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or phone 07890 869918 to discuss how we can assist you with your landscape garden project.

 

Isle of Wight Garden Gallery 12 by Tim Brayford Landscapes

Tim Brayford Landscapes – A cosy courtyard

Tim Brayford Landscapes – A half barrel makes a tiny wildlife pond

Tim Brayford Landscapes – A secluded arbour seat

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Colourful Chaenomeles flowers in spring

Tim Brayford Landscapes – A winding grass paths leads into the trees

Tim Brayford Landscapes were established in 1980 and we are British Association of Landscape Industries National Award Winners for Garden Design & Construction. We have a wide experience of landscaping works ranging from the initial ideas through to making gardens and their aftercare.

We recommend an initial verbal consultation and recommendation report preparatory to forwarding costings for your project, both for the building of entirely new gardens or for the addition of individual features to a well established one. Typically this may take the form of tree, shrub & herbaceous border planting, wildlife gardens & ponds, wildflower meadows, lawn seeding & turfing, raised beds, water gardens & pools, installation of irrigation systems, ground shaping & cultivation. We also undertake specialist maintenance work such as fruit, shrub & rose pruning.

To learn more about what we have to offer please visit our website, email  timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or call 07890869918

 

Planning and Planting a Garden by Tim Brayford Landscapes Isle of Wight

 

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Country Garden

Planting is a very personal thing and here at Tim Brayford Landscapes we understand this. One client will love a neat scheme of box topiary whereas another will long for a coloured tumble of cottage plants. A lot will depend on the amount of time a client has available to spend in their garden which is why initial discussions are so important.

We are experienced in all types of planting from semi-mature conifer gardens to neat, colourful beds in a courtyard garden. All require a lot of thought and careful planning to succeed. Plants have differing needs and consideration is given to soil type and location before suggestions are made.

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Rose Garden

We have undertaken a large cottage garden with a formal paving structure which contained herbaceous perennials, roses and shrubs to great effect. A back garden which had structured shrub planting with bark chip underlay closer to the house and a more naturalised wild garden further back. This had native trees and was under-planted with clumps of spring bulbs and wild flowers.

Most recently we planted an extraordinarily steep terraced garden with shrubs and perennials which would give cover for most of the year therefore reducing the amount of mountaineering necessary!

Hedging is an emotive subject with neighbours but there are alternatives to the dreaded Leylandii. We have completed successful projects using several different types of hedging in estate situations as well as mixed native hedging for those in more rural or spacious locations.

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Spring Flowers

Please visit our Tim Brayford Landscapes website or contact us by email timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or phone 07890 869918 to discuss how we can assist you with your landscape garden project.