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.