Smufters Garden Progress

Thanks Sheal. As I say, little bit of general tidying up to do today/tomorrow. Got some "creosote" to splash around a bit, some manure arriving on Tuesday to dig in, and I will have to move some soil into the new bed from another part of the garden to get things nice and level.
The wife is desperate to have a go with the new rotovator, so she is going to "attack" the top tier at some point to try to break the soil up a bit so that I can then go in next week with the hand tools.... Not looking foward to that, I can assure you lol!
At the moment we have a retaining "wall" three sleepers high holding back the soil on the top tier. We have had a chat with our gardener friend and are looking at replacing some of these as they are going rotten already, and increasing the height to five sleepers, extending them across the whole width of the garden. This will then allow us to put a few steps going up to it, and sort out the shifting soil on the right hand side. Also we can then incorporate another tier.
This will enable us to level the top tier out a little by backfilling to make it easier to traverse when maintaining it.
It will be quite a high(ish) wall of sleepers behind us when we use the small patio area that's situated there, but we'll plant a few climbers up it to take away the effect of a "sea of wood". A couple of hanging baskets and maybe some lighting would also help.
This small job has turned into a bit of a beast lol!!
Rob

 

You're making good progress. I'm trying to retrieve my gardens from nature and as soon as I sort out one job from the list of priorities another takes it's place. I recently had major septic tank, soakaway work which has set things back a bit.

I'll keep an eye on your thread, it's interesting to see how others renovate their gardens and sometimes it gives the rest of us ideas.

Have fun with the rotavator.

 

Just an update on how things are going......continuing the new border up towards the house, had to remove an old Hydrangea and a Bay Tree that was driving us mad. Hydrangea came up without too much problem, but the bay tree was a right handful. Have a massive, (and I do mean massive), stump to get shot of. Plan was I was going to attack it with my chainsaw but that's not going to be man enough. I'm certainly not, I know that !
Arranged for a local guy to come round next Tuesday with his stump grinder to get rid. Plan is to grind it down as far as he can get below ground, cover what's left with a large paving slab, (after injecting some root rot treatment), and then place our new water feature on top of it. Couple of nice bush roses to go around it, should look quite good.
Also got 20 x 2.4m sleepers arriving either Monday or Tuesday to replace the crap ones that form our current retaining wall and extend it over the whole width of the garden. That's going to be fun!!

 

Morning Shiney!
That fence has had it! It's eventually being replaced by our neighbours, and the only thing that was holding it up was the actual Bay tree! About 10 minutes after taking those pictures in fact, the whole panel and one of the posts came crashing in. I have propped them back up for the time being and will pull them well out of the way when Mr Grinder arrives on Tuesday

Added a picture to show the state of things

 

Just ordered one of these which we'll hang on the new sleeper retaining wall when it's all finished to help overcome what will effectively be a large, boring sea of wood!!
We'll see what it looks like when up against the natural colour of the sleepers, but may well end up staining them a darker colour as a contrast...

 

@Smufter Hi Rob, I'm not too far from you and might be in the market for some sleepers, can I ask where you got them from and how much please?

 

Hi Southerner
After much shopping around and comparing prices I ended up going with a company called "Suregreen".
I looked at the likes of B&Q, Wickes, Travis Perkins etc. But the prices were way more expensive bearing in mind the size I wanted (200mmx100mmx2.4m).
I initially contacted a local firm who were advertising on Facebook and were offering hardwood ones for £18.00 with free delivery for 10 or more but they were out of stock and I received a fairly curt reply of "dunno" when I asked if they had any idea when they were likely to get any more!!!
So Suregreen it is. They are softwood, but fully tanalised and are priced at £14.95 each, which is very competitive.
Timber Railway Sleeper | 2.4m x 100mm x 200mm | Softwood Timber | Pressure Treated

There is quite a hefty delivery charge of £85.00, but even with this they are a helluva lot cheaper than elsewhere.
Hope that helps??

 

Many thanks, I'll give them a look.

 

No problem...........
Be advised though that delivery times are a bit "hit and miss".
I ordered mine on the 12th June, being warned that "due to demand" there would be a 7-10 working day delivery window. Great, I thought, as I'm due to return to work on Wednesday 1st July after being furloughed.
I received an email from them on the 25th June to say that the sleepers had been dispatched but it is now the 29th and I've heard nothing more.
I did previously phone Suregreen to find out if I could specify a particular day for delivery, (as they say they require two people to be present to unload the items)..... they can't do that as they don't use their own drivers.
So unless they arrive today or tomorrow, (which doesn't look likely), I'm stuffed.
I don't want to get stung for another £85.00 delivery charge.

 

Just received a text to let me know that the sleepers will be delivered in an hour. Oh well, there goes my back as I'm on my own......

Edit. Got them all off loaded... they were heavy!! Rain didn't help.
Grinder man has been... Stump now gone

 

Well, a little more progress has been made!
Sleeper retaining wall now up, was hard work as we had a lot of soil to dig out to accommodate the sleepers on the right hand side.
Plan for tomorrow is to level the earth from the top tier down to the wall, (there's plenty of room behind it), and I want to put a lower, (2 sleeper), wall along the very back about 3ft away from the fence to give me a raised bed and to hide the gravel boards at the bottom of it.
Another 2 sleeper high retaining wall planned for around what we call "tier 3" (the one with the rocks at the front of it), so that we can level it and stop the earth falling down onto the "path".
Seems a lot of retaining walls, but it's the only logical way to deal with such a sloping garden.
The large tree has also sadly gone. It was a nice feature but unfortunately the trunk was rotten around the back of it, so much so that the tree surgeon was surprised it was still standing. It was so large that if it had fallen it was touch and go whether it would have hit the house, and we didn't want that happening for obvious reasons!
The rusty "maze" wall art will be hung on the main retaining wall once all of the other work around there has been completed.
It's looking a bit messy at the moment, but I've been told it always does look worse before the work is completed. Have had to order a couple more bulk bags of chippings to help top up the ones we've lost with all the work being done. A couple of garden sheds on their way (we've been waiting ages for them) so the monstrosity you can still see will be gone!!

 

It's coming on well Smufter. It'll be a picture by this time next year.

 

Thanks Sheal. But it feels like it's going to take longer than that!!!

 

12 more sleepers arrived yesterday. Heigh ho!!