Re: How are the girls going?

Jill wrote:

We could do with being able to afford new verandahs for our birds
here to mitigate the weather, but have not got the pennies .Basically
it would mean twice the investment for each of 9 big houses.

I've been working on the shelter thing in the adventure playground. Dug up a big Hebe, one with large thick leaves which I think will be unattractive to peck at. I planted a little young one shortly after the playground was completed, one with small tender leaves, and had to put a security cage around it of plastic hex mesh so it can get a solid framework of branches with the new growth out of reach. But this was a big old one that I needed out of another place. It was meant to come out as one plant but came out as 3 so have trimmed it of tender growth and planted all 3, because in the hot weather the girls cluster in the shade or stay indoors, likewise in rain and wind. When these get established they will grow quickly back to a bushy 1.5m and it's not hard to trim off the lowest branches to make shelters so the girls can tuck themselves into good shelter, as well as having the shade and windbreak advantages. It's not the kind of bush for roosting in/on!

Re your verandahs, I don't know about costings but have you thought of reinforcing mesh? (For laying in concrete.) It can be bent into curves, supported on poles, then shade-cloth or other medium-term cheap to replace "cladding" clipped on with those open rings that you put into a clamper to squeeze closed - do you know what I mean? Made for joining netting & light wire mesh. It's also good for growing e.g. clematis over - don't know how well that does for you either. Here Clematis montana grows with insane energy, dense-leaved in summer, still a dense-ish cover when "dead" in winter. Vigorous climbing / rambling rose? I've got one on the netting of the playground, planted inside, branches tied onto netting. It filters the wind and rain from that direction, which is where the worst of the weather comes towards the chooks. Just thoughts from the perpetually broke....

A L P





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