You moved how much?

It’s early April, and we are there… at least we think we are (for now), in the garden. Foolishly when all the wood was delivered and the deck down I thought the heavy lifting was done. How wrong could I be?

The deck is treated with deck oil and looks great, but now we really see how much the rest of the garden looks a mess. The old gravel is ugly and patchy and the grass… well it isn’t grass at all, it’s weeds. I’d always wanted a Japanese garden and at first we thought with all this gravel, that could work well, but this is such a sunny garden, it has much more of a Mediterranean feel, and Olive has been part of our lives for 15 years, so now she can have a garden fit for her beauty.  

We had a few deck planks left over, and the pallet a delivery came on, so Ian’s been making good use of them building a wood store. We plan on some lovely evenings under the stars keeping warm using our new fire bowl. It is a fabulous wood store, and looks great in the garden, but I can confirm it is very heavy! Moving it from the grass to it’s new home was an epic lift that included one fall but luckily no injuries!   

Having built this, and decided on the garden’s theme, we realised we need gravel, lots and lots of gravel. We thought we would start with 2 bags to see how we go. It looks fabulous and really makes a difference, but we clearly need more, lots more!

In fact we needed 6 bags…. Big bags…  

We have been working on killing the weeds/lawn, we aren’t sure there was any grass actually left by the time we got here, and so now we need to sort that too. I say we, I have done nothing, Ian has done it all, digging, turning, raking, flattening, feeding… the lot.

It’s hard to remember how awful the garden was when we first started. Every step really makes a difference. After a trip to the local plant nursery, and a garden centre or two, we also have a few plants that bring it to life. As I have said before we want low maintenance, so we have been planning it carefully. With these plants in place it looks great, but our favourite plant isn’t coming just yet. We need to wait a few days for delivery!

Over the week, Ian has wheeled 4800 kilos of gravel, from the drive to the garden and laid it. It looks amazing.

On Easter Saturday the finishing touch arrives. When you live by the sea, of course you need a palm. Who wouldn’t want a palm in their garden?  If we had planned it better, it would have arrived on Palm Sunday – but you know, a palm is for life not just for Easter.

The garden is transformed, looking magical.  By day.

And by night.

By the end of the summer the final element will be in place. We can’t wait to enjoy it with friends and family. We have years to do that in, so no rush. We will be here to welcome you when the right time comes.   

We were worried it might be too small……

The deck has grown, it’s taken on a life of its own! When we stared marking it out we weren’t sure if it would be big enough to fit table and chairs on, and what about a BBQ? Turns out, when you look at it, it probably will be big enough.

Ian has been working incredibly hard, lifting, cutting, measuring wood, digging holes, and cementing the wood in. There is a deck by the back of the garage, steps up from the house to the raised area, a reasonable size deck, and some steps up that will be useful later.

The frame has taken about 3 weeks in total of really hard work. I’ve merrily supported from my work laptop as I watch Ian become a carpenter. The trip hazard increases daily as it grows and the number of supports you need to climb over multiplies, and to be honest, there have been a few successful attempts by said deck to fell Ian. No major injury fortunately! 

                                        

You get so far and then realise you need considerably more wood to strengthen the structure, so back comes our friendly delivery driver....

I can help every so often, and when it comes to deliveries, I am a master in moving supplies. This load arrived this week, and it all needs moving. What else do you do in your lunch break, other than quickly run in and out of the garage getting the quick set concrete out of the rain? They may be in plastic bags, but you’d be surprised how many have holes in. 

After work a few days later, the final big load needs moving. These decking planks are 4.8M long, but having built up plenty of muscles in the last year of work, I get to work carefully avoiding Agy and transporting them from front to back. Not easy on your own but Ian has been working all day and is exhausted! Before long I hear a voice – “do you want a hand?”, laughing I shout “YES!” I have no idea who shouted, as I am carrying a plank and facing the other direction. I’m not expecting it to actually become help, but before I know it there is our neighbour, grabbing the other end of my deck board. As we head through the gate another neighbour is coming back from walking the dogs and is laughing at us working out how to do this in the most efficient way (to me, to you, you know how it goes). Once we drop off the plank in the garden and head back out our route is blocked… She’s there, with a plank all on her own. No problem keeping a safe distance here, the planks are a great Covid safe length! Now we all know everyone is desperate to know what we are up to in the garden, but they also know they could just ask to be nosy, and they would have helped whether they had seen it all before or not. These really are the best people.

The frame is built, now the decking needs to go down.  A  Friday evening and whole Saturday later and it’s done. It’s exhausting, but so satisfying. Now we need another trip to the DIY store so it can be sealed and treated. 

 And to think, we were worried it might be too small……

Radical gardening

 

The garden here is big, really big compared to the UK towns gardens we've had before but it is so ugly! Having done most of the big jobs on the house, we’ve moved outside (work wise, bit chilly for living outside just yet as it's still late February). It’s unlikely we will be going away on holiday this year, at this point we’d get a £5000 fine If we even tried, and we know our long term plan is to be here in the summer, so we want a garden we can really love and relax in. However, we really don’t want high maintenance. We feel like we've created a perfect party house so we need a party garden too…. Then we need people to visit – the invitation is open once it’s permitted!  

As you know, the shed has gone, and now lots of plants have too, we've basically stripped it back to the bare landscaping and now we are creating. It’s taken some work to get those plants out as they were stubborn, but they are now gone! Our amazing neighbours have come up trumps again and allowed us to use their garden bins as trips to the recycling centre are not easy to book, so now we have a blank(ish) canvas.

Ian started by sorting out a damp problem in the garage, digging out the channel holding all the water beside the very sad looking patio.

Then rebuilding the wall holding up the top part of the garden, making a little entrance up from the lower bit.

We are getting to know the B and Q and Jewsons delivery drivers quite well in this phase as wood and concrete mix keeps arriving… Ian has cleared the island of external  stainless steel strong screws (seriously he bought all there was in stock!), and has begun creating a structural base for a deck. We aren’t sure if it will be big enough, but it’s what will look good, so it is what we will have. He’s doing it in phases as we will have different sections, and to be honest it is turning into a bit of a trip hazard… we haven’t fallen over to date, but you know….  

Next came the tricky bit.. we have the concrete slab the shed was on, but that isn’t big enough for what we have planned, we need a much bigger stable base for main the party garden feature, so the earth is dug out and shuttering built. Neither of us have really made anything with concrete, but you know, we learn fast! It’s mixed, poured, tapped, smoothed, which took a LOT longer than we anticipated (who doesn’t want to be doing this in the pitch black on a very cold weekday evening), watered frequently to prevent drying too quickly  - yes this is a thing, and then the join between the 2 sections linked with self levelling concrete. It looks OK!

We also had to level out the little area outside the conservatory and breezeway back doors as that was a horrible cracked mess.

We’ve never really been garden people, I love pottering and sitting in the garden, but Ian really doesn’t, we have however, discovered he loves this garden – he has spent hours and hours in it, so not that surprising. Having had the fences raised (and now all creacoated), it’s private too; nobody can see in, that’s what’s really made the difference. Privacy! 

It’s taken a few weeks, as Ian has been doing this alone most of the time while I’m working, but progress is good and it’s light enough now after work I can help a bit, even if just for half an hour, or to monitor progress

On one of our many trips to B and Q we decided it was time to sort out furniture for the garden and once again Agy came into her own. Bed up, furniture in! Ta da… now we can sit and admire our work.