Off to a flying start

Thank you for all the photo's, I've really enjoyed looking at them. Your garden is gorgeous....a far cry from my amaturish attempts :o but as you said before, we are all proud of our gardens and I guess I am of mine in its way, one day hopefully we can stop renting and buy a place then I would love to create something as beautiful as this. :D

 

It's really beautiful, you have obviously devoted a lot of time and effort into creating your garden.

 

Axie-Ali and Jasmine,
Thank you very much for your kind comments. Axie, renting has its benefits as does owning. I thought I had done well when I sold my last house and bought this one for a lot less than I got for the last one. Unfortunately a bad business deal put me into a situation where I had to mortgage the house and I will be paying for it until I am 70. 8 years and 11 days to go :thmb:
I managed to get a little bit done today and if the weather holds up, I will carry on tomorrow for a few hours. I will post some pics late tomorrow afternoon. I have to see a client at lunchtime so the day is going to be split into gardening gear then good gear then back to gardening gear.
I have started to create a path in the front bottom lawn using old victorian fired clay round top edgings. I have aprox 60 of these given to me by the same chap who gave me the large urn. Some peoples rubbish eh!:thmb:
See you all tomorrow with said pics. G.Man

 

Great work, your garden is a credit to you and the effort youve put in.

Just a thought but from the look of the grass in the second pic a spraying with iron sulphate solution will green it up nicely without stimulating growth.

 

Thanks Paul,
I'll wait until the rainy weather has passed then take your advice about the IS. All the nutrients are being washed out due to the constant downpours.
Here are a couple of pics from the weekend when I started the work on the path (existing) putting in the sandstone. Then I started breaking up the lawn to form beds at the bottom side.






Weather stopped play so will continue soon as.
G.Man

 

WoW G,Man. You work so hard and your design idea's are Spot on because your garden's are Amazing...Looking forward to more pics and updates.. Dee..

 

Hi YDD and all reders of this thread,
Sorry to be so late in replying.
Well it's the weekend again and the sun was shining today. Achange from the last few days. When we got up this morning, I didn't have the energy to garden and the OH persuaded me that the garden would still be there whether I was out in it or not. We packed some lunch and headed for the Clyde Valley. for anyone who doesn't know the area, it's Garden Centre Central.
We bought about 7 or 8 plants and shrubs and got home about 5;30pm. I quickly mowed the lawns while OH cooked tea (pie, mash and peas followed by Eaton Mess ) We sat out on the decking at the rear (elevated about 10ft) and listned to the birds and the sound of the river at the bottom of the garden, BLISS.
Tomorrow will be either copings on a wall if it's dry or put an insulated ceiling in the summer house with new lights if it's raining.
G.Man :snz: :snz:

 

what a lovely garden you should be proud of all your hard work, be nice to see it when finished.
nice to see you using traditional fittings on the gate. good luck
rpdiy

 

Ping

 

Ping ? Just been looking through some of the thread. Looking real good :thumb:

 

On the Gardeners World chat lines the ping is used to keep a thread at the top of the board. My thread on there at the moment is Labour of love phase 2. Plenty of different pics.
G.Man

 

Hi All,
What a great day it turned out to be today! The weather forecast said rain but they got it wrong again. If we were to plan everything by what they say, we would get nothing done at all. First thing this morning, I taped and filled the joints in the plywood and plaster board in the summerhouse. My mate came over to borrow my trailer then I started back on the paths at the front garden. I laid another 20 of the Victorian edgers, then I cut and laid the weed suppressing fabric and topped off with 10mm pea gravel. Thats me run out of edgers so I have to use something else instead. I have some 450mm square patio slabs that I lifted before I built the decking, so I am going to cut them in half and use them on edge to carry on with the main path.
Thinking this will not "blend" with the Victorian edgers, so I will form a focal point in the path by using an arch and continue with the half slabs on the other side of that. It will hide the change and also give a bit of perspective to the garden by making it look like it is longer.
Here are some pics of the path as it progresses along the garden.





The membrane is tucked in at the edges and folded as it goes round the bends. The folds are held down with large staples made from 150mm lengths of fence wire. This stops that annoying lift up. When I had finished that, I went back to the summerhouse and sanded and painted the ceiling and walls. This leaves me with just a few minor filling in bits to do before I fit skirtings and paint them.
Next thing was to finish the second coat of stain on the decking. It's looking good and will help it to overwinter. Just got the steps to coat and then probably the handrails and spindles. I won't use decking stain on them though, best to use something with a bit more glossiness to give it that finished look. Probably stick to the oak theme though as the deck and fence are Hampshire oak.

:thumb:

 

Hi Everyone, Here's the progress on the new paths. I aquired some timber from a client who was getting rid of her decking and brought it home. I de-nailed the 6x2's and the decking boards and cut enough to size for this arch. I stained it the same colour as the fence and planted one side up with a climbing rose and a clematis.

I bought these four fence posts at our local sawmill for £ 16 and a box of screws for £ 2;50
the stain was left over from the fence treatment.


I planed them up smooth and stained them.

Before fitting them into 4 spikes that cost £ 20

Then I cut 2 bearers to 4.5" and shaped the ends.

before fitting them onto the posts with screws.
Next to cut and shape were 3 cross bearers which were fitted to the top.




Next it was the decking boards cut to size for the trellis pieces.

They were fitted and stained then I planted up.


The whole thing cost £ 38;50 and saved a lot of landfill.
I have enough timber left to make a seated arbour at the top border, and an arch at the new gate.

Here are some pics I took this afternoon.

 

That's a really nice arch you now have there, Well done! Thanks for sharing, your garden is coming along really well.:ntwrth: