My little haven

work on some drainage issue tonight, tested it after with a good soaking with the hose and no standing water anymore, few more bags of gravel and i can get on with the sitting area

 

Started work on the tetrapanax and giant elephant ear border today



also the sitting area and pergola base was started

 

Its all coming together and looking great well done .

 

I still wonder when it will be done and get disheartened but when i look back on here i see how far i have come, many thanks for your kind words...

Today i finished off the sitting area, but instead of having a pallet seat i moved the patio set into the area and it looks really good





also started my strange garden ornament collection

first item

 

Its looking really nice keep going, i keep thinking the same and my answer is it will never be done but getting closer every year, its taken four years for me to get to this stage it was worse than the first picture when we moved in with no fence to the right and 16 or so large trees.

Yes looking back keeps us going forward .

 

great work martin

 

changed some of the palms in the front border for more suitable ones



also finished the rickety walkway that will eventually go over the pond, also wired up another light



The skull in the planter

 

its been a while since posting and its also been a slow few months with not much time for gardening due to work and the weather, well today the sun was shining for once so thought i would start the footings for the pond



hope to get them all dug this week and get the concrete in next week...

happy gardening all

 

Hi BigBore

I've really enjoyed reading this thread and watching your progress! It's looking great. I've just moved into a new house and have a long term project of completely overhauling the garden. It's prompted me to take photos now whilst it's like it is, then tracking the progress. This thread makes a wonderful diary for you.

I'm unsure how experienced you are in the garden (I'm really not that experienced), so I apologise if I'm teaching you suck eggs (or whatever the saying is!) In my last house I built/dug my first pond, a wildlife pond. I wish I would have followed a piece of advice I read, which was, when building a pond, get the dimensions you want, then add half the size again. If not, you look and think it looks great but I wish I would've gone bigger! I did!

Also I would be really wary of Koi, unless you have the space, time and £. The house I've moved into has a pond (which has since it has been emptied) kept Koi Carp. In fact from what I've worked out from the structure which I cam now see, and what I found in there (various pieces of concrete ideal for amphibians to hide etc.), I suspect it was a wildlife pond to start with, which fish were then added to. It's width and length is quite big, but it was 1 1/2 foot deep. I know that people reading this now will be in despair as a pond keeping Koi from what I've read should be 4 foot deep minimum. Als the pump and filtration etc is something that should be considered from the early design stages and not just pumps added ad hoc (which is what the previous owner has done). The guy that very kindly came and drained it and took the 20 odd fish really was in despair! But fish saved, enjoying a new home and the pond will return to a wildlife oasis!

Also further to this, when building a pond, it's either for wildlife or fish, you can't have both. Fish are essentially predators to all the other little things that might want to live in your pond. I skim read some of the posts so not sure if you've already decided upon this ...?

Anyway I hope I've been of some help and I look forward to reading and seeing the development of your haven! Completely renovating a garden is a very rewarding experience.

All the best

Chris

 

thanks for your kind words, i look forward to following your thread and seeing what you do! I really enjoy reading through mine and seeing how far i have come especially when i hit a low spot and can't seem to move forward with the garden it helps me get back on track... I am a total novice with gardens and ponds and as much as i would like to go bigger i can't as don't have the room. I won't be having koi as its simply not big enough... Not sure what fish i will have yet but the size is looking at 6ftx5ftx4ft

here is an update of the slow dig

 

my red cordylines died so i have replaced these with the green ones



the pond dig has come to a halt until i have the time to order a skip and fill it, this is the side of the garden i don't like to show as its not planned in my project until 2017





My back border is coming on well



south side border is also looking good









I have a tetrapanax coming this Thursday so i will post pics of it once planted..


Hope you all enjoy the pics

Jamie

 

Its looking very nice Jamie your hard work is rewarding you .

 

The little baby tetrapanax is planted, watch this space in a couple of years :-)

 

well the season is coming to an end for me so i thought i would finish this thread for this year and leave a few pictures of the progress and to remind me in spring next year just how far i have come! Next year is the final phase of the garden project and then it will be just fine tuning it for the next 40 years :-)

I have hope you have all enjoyed this years posts and look forward to posting next year

Happy gardening folks

Novice gardener

 

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading (and seeing) the progress you have made on your garden. You have worked hard and made a HUGE difference; it's actually hard to remember how little time it has taken you (relatively). Job well done, bravo!

I know this is retrospective, but, ... were you 100% certain?
The reason I say that is (this is obviously for future reference) when I moved into my previous house in 2010 there was a pot with the remains of a red cordyline in it. I had the luxury of a "dead" area of garden where I just upturned the pot and its contents and forgot about it. Fast forward to 2013 and, following two winters of full blown snow on the ground, blow me if there wasn't signs of growth from that plant Bear in mind I had upended the pot so the rootball had been covered in snow two years running! Can't recall if I posted on here about it or not, but it did take me by surprise! My point being, they can be hardy beggars and, it would seem, are clever at performing the dying swan act, only to resurrect themselves at a later stage The green ones you replaced them with do look nice and "fresh" though, so, maybe the best choice in the end after all