My Garden's Working Progress

I've broken this down into several posts to make things a little more digestible.

Nearly a year ago we moved into our first house. This is my first garden that I have full control over. I used to do gardening at my parents but didn't have much say in the "design" of things.

This is how the garden looked the day we moved in. A 116ft garden, complete with 2 garages, a rotten shed (behind the garage on the right), driveway and overgrown privet hedge (forgot to mention the washing line)







(Another shot but with the pergola removed)




Pictures of the rotten shed behind one of the garages. The roof was very close to caving in but full of things the previous owners left behind.

My plans were to take up the driveway but leave one of garages for a workshop for the other half, who is into his woodworking.

After a few months we had built a potting shed, greenhouse and removed both the garages and rotten shed. Even though we had intended to keep one garage we quickly found out that the roof was leaking very badly. It was therefore decided to replace them both with a brand new shed for the other half, which cost the same as replacing the roof on the garage anyway.

Unfortunately Other half thought he would be able to get away with mounting thee whole thing on bricks and quickly realised he would need a concrete base for it. While this was taking place his large workshop sat assembled against the garden wall.



The picture below was taken on the day the workshop was erected. The rotten old shed can be seen leaning against the wall.



We ended up auctioning both garages off on ebay, as we were not sure about dismantling them ourselves. After a few days an offer was made on both garages and we accepted. They were both dismantled in a weekend and we were £160 richer.

Here's a better picture of the workshop, measuring 10' x 16'. It's still standing on the two garage bases but had to have a new more even base built on top.



Parts of the rotten old shed were reused to build a compost bin and a place to store my leaves while they decomposed.

 

A vegetable garden was then created around the greenhouse. This was then enclosed with a picket fence, which I built from scratch.



By early January, with little else to do gardening wise I decided it was time to take up the driveway. I hired myself a concrete breaker and spent the next 4 days taking up as much as I could. I had to leave a strip so we could walk down the garden without getting ourselves muddy.

The resulting carnage







After clearance

 

By April this year with the dry weather we were having I felt like it would be a good time to repaint the other half's workshop. We went for a dark colour so it would look more discrete.



I also rearranged the beds in the vegetable garden to fit another bed in and make access to the compost bin a bit easier. Erected a trellis at the end of the vegetable garden and repainted the picket fencing.

Before


After

 

In late May came the big day. Builders would be coming to take up the rest of the driveway and two old garage bases at the end of the garden. They would then build a pathway that would run halfway down the garden.

Day before the builders arrived, how everything looked. (New coat of paint added to the picket fence and trellis)







The destruction only took a day to complete. But left the garden in total chaos as a result. Both garage bases at the end of the garden were lifted out of the ground with a digger. They quickly discovered that the people who had built the base had also thrown in a load of asbestos in with the concrete. This caused a massive headache, as most of it was still stuck to the concrete and would costs hundreds to be disposed of. In the end the digger dug a massive hole and buried it, something I'm not happy about but we had little choice.



We had own front garden blocked paved over at the same time (will show photos in a separate post from this one) and the total build only took 4 days to complete both.

End of day one



In the end when the work was completed and most of the rubble was taken away the garden looked like this. When the digger dug the hole to put the asbestos in they bought up a lot of horrible claggy clay to the surface. It looked fine and workable until it bucketed it down and turned it into toffee.





The other half wanted grass outside his workshop and so had to buy 2 tons of topsoil to spread a thick layer over the toffee clay. We seeded the lawn with grass seed for shaded conditions, rather than turfing it.

The paving slabs ain't level in this picture but were laid down out of necessity.



Pictures of the finished pathway.

 

Well done JJ!

I felt tired just looking at your photos!


What are your design plans? Will you be putting in another pergola?

We've been dancing and jumping about a lot in the garden recently, and so Im lobbying for a dance area! You've got the room!

 

What a brilliant thread.

At times, I can imagine that it must have seemed quite daunting.

 

To be quite honest I still have no idea what to plant up along the bed that runs parallel with the garden. The soil is very heavy clay of course and will be digging it over in the winter months. But the garden is south facing and that bed (and most of the garden) gets sunlight most of the day.

Would love to have a few more trees planted along the path, but don't want anything too big and doesn't mind getting baked a fair bit.

Any suggestions would be great.

I thought all asbestos was bad? Could you tell me the difference between the two? I'm still digging lumps of it out of the garden, which have been scattered all over the place

When we first moved in I started attacking the driveway with a hammer and a cold chisel. This was a silly attempt now I look back on it and never really felt daunted by the idea of taking up the concrete. I did however grow very tired and frustrated by the way 70% of the garden was covered in concrete. For the past year I feel that I haven't really done any gardening, just demolishing and building things.

I've bought and planted a few plants here and there but I still can't plant till at least next year I reckon. The builders left about a ton of rubble in the bed that runs along the path. To cover this up they dumped a ton of topsoil ontop. So since they left Ive been digging over the bed and removing endless amounts of rubble. They took most of what I dug up away when I pointed this out, but still can't understand why they did it and I'm still pulling out smaller bits I missed even a month on.

I reckon it will take me another month to remove the lot, but it's just another setback, Ive gotten to used to them. I'm happy though that the driveway has gone for good now.

Thank you for all the comments it does mean an awful lot.

 

Wow you have done alot of work :D.
Not nice having to look at masses of paving/concrete is it :(

 

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Just have had a look at your photies, starting to look the part, very well done.

 

Forgot to post up pictures of the old front garden too.

I'm usually the last person who would want to turn a front garden into a car park, but our street is very overcrowded with cars and so had little choice. I still got to keep a large section as a bed though, which is buzzing with lots of bees and ladybirds at the moment.

This was how it looked the day before the builders moved in. Lots of lawn, full of ground elder, which I had neglected for the past few months.





The first day of the builders. Half the wall was knocked down, the concrete path removed and the lawn taken up (along with the ground elder I hope)









End of day one and the big pile of sand had buried a few of my plants, which I had to dig out and move.



End of day 2



And the finished drive.

 

That looks nice and neat , at least you wont have to cut the lawn :D.
Your bed looks nice too , you could also fit a few pots in here and there if you have room.

 

JJ, that looks really fab!

I cant help thinking there must have been days (if not weeks) when both your back and front gardens were complete chaos, a-buzz with activity but with seemingly no end in sight.

I totally see the point in getting it all out of the way ASAP, but those days following last months very heavy rain must have been hellish! Front and back!

I salute your indefatigability! :D