Over to Me

The gardeners pretty much finished yesterday afternoon. They are coming back on Monday to do a bit more tidying up but basically they everything on their brief is done. The change in the garden is tremendous and I am really, really pleased, but of course this now means that it is “over to me” in terms of getting the planting done.

I love how the kitchen garden with its raised beds has turned out:-




The gardeners have suggested putting a trellis across the garden to “hide” the raised beds. I could grow a climbing plants up it. They would then merge the side bed into a bed in front of the trellis. I’m considering it, although I do intend to make the kitchen garden a pretty one so I’m not sure if I want to hide it or not!

I’m pleased with the other flower beds as well. The existing bed is much wider now, and although the beds along the fences might look narrow in the photograph, they are actually quite deep. It is going to be a challenge to fill them all up with plants.




We’ve even got a base for a shed tucked in behind the garage at the side of the garden. It’s great to see that area all cleared out - it was full of overgrown plants.



So now, it is very much over to me in terms of buying some plants and getting them in. (And over to my husband in terms of the shed!) Sadly I’m too late for much of an autumn kitchen garden, but the raised beds will sit happily till the spring and I can plant them up then. I may even have a go at raising some plants from seed. The flower beds definitely need work though. All I have at the moment for them are some bulbs and lots of ideas. We have a couple of busy weeks coming up with trips to Athens and Paris so I’ll start on the planting when I get back. Watch this space!

Nearly There

As you can see, the raised beds for the “kitchen garden” have been installed and are just waiting to have their lining finished and the topsoil put in. There will be gravel all around them when they are finished as well. The beds along the sides of the garden are also coming along beautifully. It looks like we may be on track for completion tomorrow afternoon as planned!

Meanwhile, my lovely friend Sylvia came to visit yesterday. She is amazing at gardening. Her own garden is gorgeous and she designed and did a lot of the work on our garden in the house we owned before this one. As it was a few years ago, Sylvia and I did all the work on that one ourselves, with a bit of help from my husband and son. As I’m a bit older and perhaps a tad wiser, this time I decided to bring in some nice gardeners to do the heavy work. I’m just saving the fun stuff - like planting - for me! Sylvia and I spent hours yesterday talking about what sort of plants I wanted, colour schemes and even garden sculptures (although I think I’m going for the sculptural tree she suggested as opposed to anything made of stone or iron). We’ve worked right through the seasons so there will be colour all the time. I can’t wait to get started!

Aside from all that it was just lovely to see Sylvia. As we live 150 miles apart, we last got together before Christmas and that was just waaay too long ago. We had a great time going through loads of gardening books, weighing up lots of planting options, going out for a great Chinese meal with my son and drinking a few glasses of red wine. Wonderful! Sylvia headed off home this morning, leaving me with tons of inspiration and ideas.

My husband gets back from Paris tonight and not only can I not wait to see him, I can’t wait for him to see the garden. We may have to wait until morning though as it will be dark by the time he gets home....

As for me, my son and I are off this evening to help my cousin and cousin-to-be decorate the village hall where they are holding their wedding reception tomorrow. I’m so excited about their wedding! Not only have I not been to a wedding in ages, but they are such lovely people it makes it extra special.

Have a lovely weekend everyone :-)

My Garden's Evolution

The top four photographs are taken from the same angles as the ones yesterday. The bottom left and bottom right photographs are of the corners of the “side” of the L-shape that is our garden which I did not do “before” photographs of. As you can see the chaps from the Creative Landscape Company have begun to remove the grass for the kitchen garden outside the utility room door and behind the side of the garage. (See yesterday's blog entry for more specific details). They have also widened the flower bed along that side, as well as starting to dig the borders all round the rest of the garden. It’s beginning to come together!

The raised beds in the kitchen garden are going to be made with weathered pressure treated wood, and yesterday I had the choice of either black or a shade of pale green. I chose the green so it will match in with the fence panels we already have. I was going to get one of Rocket Gardens’ winter vegetable gardens to plant in one of the raised beds, but I had an email from them earlier this week and they have sold out. I first saw Rocket Gardens at the Good Food Show at Olympia last year. They sell complete gardens in miniature - baby plants of organic vegetables and herbs that sent out ready to plant for a virtually instant garden. Oh well, perhaps I will try one of their spring vegetable gardens next year.

I’m getting excited about planting. It’s so lovely to have an almost blank canvas to work with. Once my friend S arrives later today I’ll be able to start formulating a real plan.

I was hoping all the groundwork would all be finished by Friday, however, I’m beginning to wonder if that is possible now. There is still quite a lot of work to be done. We’ll have to see. For the moment, I am just incredibly grateful the rain is holding off!!

The Garden Project (Finally!) Begins

It has taken us nearly two years to get round to this but today the Creative Landscape Company started work on our garden. The pictures above are the “before” photos. To be fair I did not even get in touch with the nice folks at Creative Landscape Company until this summer, so it isn’t all their fault it took two years. In fact, it’s pretty much entirely mine. We were however scheduled to do this in September but they had too much work on so I’m really glad it is getting started now.

Actually considering we bought this house in quite a rush, we did very well in the garden stakes. It is the biggest garden on our estate/subdivision. I realised the back garden was pretty good, but I can remember being surprised at how much garden we had round the side of the house when the fence went up mid-build. The garden is L-shaped and really substantial. The top photo is of what I refer to as the bottom of the L. (The small building at the back of the photograph is the side of the double garage, the side of our house is to the right. That’s the utility room door you can see on the right hand side.) The next photo is the bottom of the L from the other direction. (My back is to the garage; you can just see part of the side of our house on the left.) The photo third from the top is of the side of the L (our house is on the left) looking down the garden towards the road. (Our house does not face the street; we are tucked away behind a wall and some gates.) The photo on the bottom is of the side of the L taken from the patio area (I had my back to the house, but you can see a corner of the back extension peeking out there on the right). I’m grateful we’ve got such a lot of garden to work with.

As you can see from the photo on the left and in the middle, there is one long straight flower bed along the bottom of the L, put in by the builders. Their planting was kind of haphazard, with lots of plants that grow really big and gangly at the front and short ones at the back. I’ve had a bit of a go at sorting their planting out, getting rid of some of the plants and moving others, but there is still a lot more to do. I’ve put some new planting in there, comprised of some of the plants brought from our previous garden, gifts and some plants which I bought. However that bed is still very much a work in progress.

The plan is to put in a sculpted border all along the edges, from beside the patio right along the side of the L, which then joins into the flower bed along the bottom of the L that is already there (and also softens its edges). Then, outside the utility room door in the bottom of the L, there is to be a “kitchen garden” for vegetables and herbs. There are to be two raised beds about 4 meters square each, surrounded by some gravel to keep things nice and neat. The area to the left of the side of the garage (as you face the side) is to be cleared and levelled so a concrete base can also be laid for a shed. (We have yet to find and choose a shed, but at least there will be a base there when we do!)

The gardeners will not be doing any planting; I’ll be doing it. I like planting and planning gardens, I just don’t like digging, so this is the perfect solution. My dear friend S will be arriving tomorrow for a visit and to advise me on planting. She helped me design and put in the garden in our previous house a few years ago - even doing the actual landscaping. - while her husband was deployed in Iraq. She has an amazing talent for gardens, and her own is beautiful. I was really sad to leave the one she designed for me behind when we moved, but she came round and dug out loads of the plants so I could take them with me so many of them are here thanks to her!

I’m not sure I will get all the planting done straight away, but at least I will have a plan. I do have some bulbs I bought at the Chelsea Flower Show to put in - tulips and hyacinths - and some bulbs I had in pots from last year (again tulips from the Chelsea Flower Show the year before). I hope they bloom again as they were just beautiful.

As I sit here writing, the sounds of garden machinery fill the air and piles of dirt and grass are beginning to form as the gardeners get to work. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out!