Making change is a funny old thing...

Making changes in a garden is a funny old thing. There are times when you do something that either costs lots of money or takes lots of effort (or both) and you hardly notice the change that has been made. At the other end of the scale, you can do something that costs a modest amount and really doesn't take much effort, and the effect is huge. Case in point, from time to time (probably about every 2 - 3 years) we freshen up the path in the Woodland Walk. In keeping with the context, we have always used chipped bark to do this, but the problem with chipped bark is that it does rot down very quickly and isn't very pleasant to walk on once it has done so. Last year while visiting Batsford Arboretum, we noticed they put wood chips as opposed to chipped bark down on their woodland paths, and it looked very smart. So this year we have done the same. Instead of buying in many bags of chipped bark from the local DIY, we bought a large dumpy bag (one tonne builders merchants bag?) of wood chips, at considerably less cost. It was easy to wheelbarrow round and spread over the path in the Woodland Walk, and the transformation is amazing - we too now have very smart paths, we think it will last much longer, and it has just lifted that whole area of the garden wonderfully.