Now that we've recovered from having our kitchen redone, we've decided that it's time to have some work done on our back garden. We'll keep track of the ups and downs of the project on this page.
Before
Here are some pictures of what our garden looks like before the work starts. It's tidy but pretty dull. Good for
the kids to play in when they were younger, and of course we have our party in the garden every year. But we
thought that we could make much better use of all the space.
We have already done some work. We took down the old chocolate brown shed. And we have a new fence on one side
closeboard at the top and pallisade at the end. The colour is a really warm brown, especially in the late-afternoon and early-evening sunshine.
Plans
We had started with some ideas of our own, and even had a sketch of the kind of things we wanted. But what we
know about plants would have trouble filling a Post-it™ note. So we knew we had to call in a designer.
Caroline Mason has expanded our initial thoughts into a great design. The garden will be divided into
four areas, each with plants from different parts of the world. We will have new seating on the paved area
in the middle of the garden, with a pergola to add some shade. New fencing, two new trees, and a new rockery.
Best of all we will finally be rid of the ugly old concrete paths.
Landscape
Dan and Nick have started the landscape work. The first task was to remove the hedge and most of the other plants. There are a few that we are
keeping — including the Jasmine on the left and of course the Cherry on the right. Next steps will be removing the fencing on the
left, and replacing it with new closeboard to match the fencing on the right.
The new fence is now complete. It runs the full length of the garden, starting out full height and then reducing to
three quarter height further down the garden. Dan and Nick found an old 'Belfast' style sink under the existing fence. No idea how it got there.
And we have a new rockery too, all ready for planting.
The new pergola is up along with the oak seating underneath. It will make a great place to sit when the weather gets
a bit better - as you can see it is pretty cold now.
The landscape work is now finished! We have several tonnes of compost on the flower beds to improve the soil.
The new pergola and seating looks great. It was warm enough today to go out and sit on it for a minute or two.
We will add some lights and some power so we can sit out on warm evenings.
Planting
Now that spring has sprung Caroline has been able to put in most of the plants. They are loving the mixture of
sunshine and showers that we have been having lately. All the plants look really well and there has been lots of
new growth.
The new rockery is partly planted. It now has some herbs that will give more scent it different times of the year
and also give us some fresh cooking ingredients.
The European border is already starting to flower and look very colourful. By the time of our summer party I'm sure
that it will look great — so make sure you come along.
There are more plants to go in, and obviously the new planting will take a few years to mature, but I think we'll close this page here. I'm sure you'll see how the garden gets on in later pictures.