Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

1st, 5th & 7th April 2024

To start April, we went shopping around several garden centres and ended up spending £120 on thirty alpine plants. These were all to go between the hawthorn hedge and the path, to help keep the weeds down and stop soil erosion.

On the 5th, I spent the day digging out the weeds and digging in a load of sand to help break up the heavy clay soil. I did 70 feet of the 100 foot long path. I was out in my Jeep on the 6th, then on the 7th, Lynne and I spent a couple of hours planting along the Hawthorn. The plants were spaced, based on their predicted spread and they only got us 60 feet along the hedge, starting at the railway!



After those were all planted, we moved up to the area near the kitchen. We're going to extend the patio by about two paving stones, as it gets a bit crowded with a few people up there. As a result, several plants would be lost under the new patio. Several of them were idea candidates for the railway embankment.

They were Lady's Mantle and Water Avens which were medium height and could go mid depth in the embankment. The low Purple Rock cress would be ideal for along the front. They were carefully dug out and the rock cress spread around the front edge of the railway. The Lady's Mantle and Water Avens were planted at each end.

I'd need several more plants to fill this area, but it's going to take a while for the plants to establish themselves and spread out to fill the area.

 

13th April 2024

On the 13th, we had another push on the railway embankment. After dropping my daughter off to see some friends, Lynne and I continued to a garden centre and splashed out on more plants, compost and some small garden tools.



By the time we got back home, it was lunch time, but after a quick bite to eat, we were out working at the railway. The first job was to dig more sand and compost into the embankment, to break up the clay soil. With that done, the exciting bit, planting. We couldn't get all the plants I'd picked out two weeks ago, so had to get some alternatives, but it all worked out.

 

They were all quite small and needed to grow and fill out the area properly, so it still looked a bit sparse after planting. All around the back of the planted area, we sowed wildflower seeds, to form a backdrop to the rest. Very few of the seeds actually did anything in the end.



We also bought five more spreading plants, to continue the plants along the hawthorn hedge, up to the garage. That's thirty four along seventy feet of hedge.



The pictures below show the completed embankment, one with all the plants identified. We were still looking for more Purple Rock Cress, to make a more solid boundary between the plants and the ballast. Other than that, for now, the planting was done and we needed to wait and let everything grow and spread. Next year, we can take another look and see if anything died and whether there are still spaces that could do with filling.

I was looking forwards to the Summer, leaning on my crossing gate, with a cold drink in my hand, watching the buzzy things going mental around all the flowers!!

 

19th April 2024

Due to the cost of plants, I decided to have a go at growing flowers from seed. There were plenty of places in the garden that could do with some spaces filling in. I started with some Candytuft, which I think was found in my dad's shed when clearing it out. While they were a year out of date, some did sprout. Despite the cost of the railway plants so far, we did find some purple rock cress online, so spent some more! The small plants weren't too expensive and in time, would go to fill in the front edge of the embankment.



The rebuilding of the wall was painfully slow, in the main due to the weather. The first half of 2024 had seen some really strong wind here and lots of heavy rain. Neither were great for wall building! This picture is from the 20th of April.

It was also quite difficult due to the bricks. I did lots of bricklaying in the old garden and got quite good. However, these 160 year old bricks were all different sizes, concave and convex. It made getting the wall straight and level quite a challenge and some pairings ended up too wide for the double leaf wall. As I went, it was like dry stone walling, looking for bricks that would fit well together, in length, width and height.

 

21st April ~ 9th May

I got a little more done to the wall on the 21st, the 26th and May 1st. I ran out of original wall bricks due to many being broken or crumbling. I was also building the wall longer than it was originally. I started recycling the bricks from the wall, demolished by the BMW in December.



Lynne decided she wanted another vegetable planter, just for the strawberries, as the potato crop was creeping into the strawberry area. There was just enough room for a 3 feet square planter, but we had to get a 3 x 6 ft planter and just assemble it as a 3 foot square. The slates were cleared on the 5th of May, while the planter arrived a few days later. It was assembled on the 9th, lined and filled with the leftover lawn topsoil and compost. The bird netting frame was a really tight fit, but did go in without alterations.



On the 24th of April, I got four more packets of seeds. They were Daisy Pomponettes, Cineraria Silver Dust, Canterbury Bells and Creeping Thyme for various locations around the garden. I was going to have a go at being a proper gardener! It didn't take too long before they all got going.

 

8th May 2024

Due to the poor weather and really dull start to the first half of the year, I bought four LED grow lights to help the seedlings develop. I'd already made several shelves in one of the workshop windows and the lights were added above two of them.



16th May 2024

By mid May, I'd also added two cold frames to the patio outside the workshop, to move the plants on to. My workshop window sill was getting a bit full and the seedlings would need hardening off before planting outside.



29th May 2024

Back to the railway and after a few days out in the cold frame, I planted the rock cress to finish the edge of the embankment on the left and right.

 

You really are turning into a proper gardener!

 

I've read this whole thread and really enjoyed it! You don't do things by halves do you @ArmyAirForce !
Your seedlings looked great - nice and well spaced out. Beginners often end up with something that looks like a punnet of cress.
Looking forward to future installments.

 

To be fair, every hobby I take up, I throw myself at it 100%. You only need to look at the start of the thread to see that!

 

Your 100% enthusiasm is certainly working @ArmyAirForce and it’s all looking fabulous. May I forward a ( gentle) suggestion please? From our own experience of having soil near gravel it might be beneficial to have some sort of edging in the plot near the railway line/ black tracks as I can just see/imagine seeing birds scratting away in the soil, sending it flying all over, and also in the gravel too.? It does tend to get very tedious trying to pick up soil in gravel and vice versa. Like leaves….
My late father was a Master builder and I reckon he would have approved of your wall! So much so, that he would have been in there with you, doing a bit. It’s looking grand so far.

 

The Rock Cress has now spread the full length of the railway, providing a barrier around 6 inches wide between the soil embankment and the gravel.

 

@ArmyAirForce

 

29th May 2024

The red Water Avens were shedding lots of petals on the ballast, so the plant closest to the track was dug out and moved further back. This left more space for the rock cress under the edge of the conifer. I still needed something to fill that space that doesn't mind being in the partial shade and shelter of the conifer.



The other embankment plants had almost been in the ground for seven weeks at this point. All of them survived planting out and several cold nights in April.



While they still needed to grow and spread, they had been flowering well, a few of which are shown below.

 

31st May 2024

With a few days of dry weather predicted at the end of May into June, I wanted to get on with the wall. I'd previously cleaned up a number of bricks that were used on the 1st of May, but needed more. So on the 31st, I got another 120 bricks cleaned of mortar, ready to be laid.



1st June 2024

The wall was pretty much finished at the start of June. I'd used all the original capping stones, but as the wall was now longer, there was a section left to cover. I decided to leave it as it was and look for something similar, or failing that, make a mould and cast one in concrete.

The pillar wasn't going any higher, as that was just used to tie the wall to the neighbour's wall. I would either cut some of the existing bricks to put a sloping top on it, or look for another suitable capping stone. For the time being, it was complete enough, as the year was ticking by very quickly and I wanted to make a start on the patio extension.

 

4th & 5th June 2024

On the 4th, I began weeding, digging out and clearing plants from the location of the patio extension. Some of the tall plants, which I think are Astrantia Major 'White Giant', would be moved to the back of the railway embankment. The Lupins, seen in the 2021 picture, never came back the following year. The red Water Avens had already been moved to the railway, along with the Lady's Mantle.

On the 5th, with most of the plants out of the way, I began to mark out the foundations for the low wall that would be needed to support the edge of the new patio and retain the hardcore. Foundation digging began after that.



6th June 2024

On the morning of the 6th, I moved several Astrantia Major 'White Giant' plants to the railway. They were fairly tall and would make a nice background to the low alpines at the front of the embankment.



I got that done in time to watch SpaceX fly their Starship for its 4th test flight, followed by preparing my military vehicles for an evening D-Day beacon lighting ceremony in the village.