Andrew71s Project - South France

Ok, this is going to be a very long term project due to me only being able to get over there 3 or 4 times per year.

I am probably going to bore most with questions on the project but each time I do some work I will update this post with a couple of pictures.

A general description of the project, I have 3/4 of an acre of land which is sloped in two directions. I have done all the design of how I want it to look when finished. I am restricted on some areas due to ongoing work on the house, the barn and other out buildings so some areas have to be put to the back of the order of construction which unless you fully understand the project does not make sence.

In the garden there is going to be a Therapy garden, a Vegitable plot, a collection of fruit trees, various retaining walls, and then a herb garden plus other things.

I will try and PDF or Jpeg my garden design ang let you have a look at the full scheme but at the moment it is just a series of sketchs on CAD drawings.

I will post progress pictures after each trip to show what I have been up to.

I have just been over for a week and spent 3 days on the Therapy garden area, basically digging using a cut a fill method to create the first level section of the garden.

Hopefully these pictures will work.

Andrew71



This was standing at the bottom of a slope which will eventually become the therapy garden, the next level veg plot, then next level the fruit trees.

This is a general picture and there will be a few more to follow



Photo looking towards where I took the last picture from which will become the entrance to the therapy garden.

Before I post any progress pictures I will post a few general pictures in my next post after I hve loaded them to photo bucket

IMAGES RESIZED DOWN TO 800 X 600 MAXIMUM ALLOWED SIZE
Cheers

Andrew

 

I find the running threads of contributor's projects, particularly those with lots of photos very interesting. I like to see the changes and hear how they tackle particular problems, I'm sure it can be of help to others in many ways.

This board would be boring and poorly supported if it depended mostly on posts and answers like; "How do I get rid of greenfly?"

 

Hi Andrew

I hope your visits are long ones as there will be a lot of work, as I'm sure you already know. Can you explain what you mean by a Therapy Garden please? Are there fruit trees already in situ, or will you be purchasing them?

 

Good luck Andrew. You've lots of work there but you will get there a bit at a time - and I'm sure it will be enjoyable for you to do.
Do keep the pics coming - I'd love to see how you get on.

 

I will keep posting pictures of the progress, I have some of my first stint over there where we started the first level which I will post soon.

No fruit trees are planted yet, I am intending to plant them on my next visit and hopefully will get a first yield from them in 3 to 4 years depending on thier age at planting.

In relation to the Therapy garden, my better half is a complimentary therapist and part of the barn conversion is going to be a therapy centre, so we are doing a part of the garden which is going to be for people to go spend time in doing relaxation, yoga, meditation etc. I am hoping to make a very relaxing serine area in the garden with a water feature and statues and stuff. It is all going to be the mrs design with me doing the grunt work etc.

This is only a small section of the garden so I will post some other pictures of the garden as well.

Photos of progress to follow later in the week.

Thanks for the kind words.

Andrew

 

Some more photos of the garden.



Area where the Therapy garden will be



Looking across the front of the house



Looking up the front of the barn



One of the big trees that had to come out, had to do the stump removal by hand which was chuffin hard work



General photo of the lower section of the garden which is in front of the house.

As you can see the garden is very big with years ahead of work, but hopefully will create a full story board of the work for you to enjoy.

I will post some pictures of the first level I undertook.

It was a baking hot week, the ground was rock solid and the ground was more a boulder clay, it did soften up after a spell of rain but it was 2 days solid digging to get the cut and fill right.

More pictures to follow

Andrew

ps sorry don't know how to resize my pictures.....

 

Thanks Wiseoldowl, hopefully all pictures from now on will be 800x600, any probs will give you a shout.

Thanks

Andrew

 

Great to see the photos - looks like it's going to be quite a project!!!

 

Ok, as stated here are two photos of the work undertaken in the Therapy garden area.

This area is at the bottom of the slope and I decided to do a cut and fill exercise. I worked out that a 750mm deep cut was needed and the soil excavated would allow to level the lower part of the slope.

The bottom of the slope is going to eventually going to be retained by the control planter as metioned previously and a babmboo screen grown to create the lower screens.

The most frustrating point of doing this scheme in the time slot allowable is that I can not plant it fully yet I can only put vegitation in that I want to grow eg bamboo and fruit trees as these can be left for months at a time without the need to maintain etc.

These two photos show the digging, which was back breaking through boulder clay on a baking hot day. The ground was so hard we had to use mattocks and pickaxes to break the ground up inch by inch. It took two solid days of digging with two of us on it from 8.30am till 7.30pm each day.

The second phot was of my first attempt tobuild a dry stone wall, I am happy with it at the moment, but no doubt as I progress and get better at building walls I may return to it and modify it.



Excavation



Dry stone wall

Cheers

Andrew

 

Great pictures, Andrew!!!

Keep up with the posting and the pictures, so we can all follow along with you.

 

Hi Andrew, it will be interesting to follow your project on here. You have a great setting for your garden, the existing mature trees and lovely stonework of the property are a gift!

 

Thanks for comments.

Yes the stonework is very nice as all the main buildings and out buildings are from the same stone and very luckily there is a quarry not to far away which still mines the same stone. So as I construct all the retaining walls in the garden and dry stone walls I should be able to use the same stone and the price is not too bad.

I think the main changes that will appear in the next few years are all going to be mainly the structure of the garden, like the cut and fills, dry stone and retaining walls etc.

I have designed a full rain recovery system that I am going to install which should store around 3000 litres of water during the rain season to enable a solar powered self watering system (fingers crossed) during the dry periods.

In my next trip I will be undertaking more excavations and dry stone walls as well as cutting back all the vegitation which is massively over grown. once the cutting back is complete I will be defining some of my boundaries (I have corner marking posts in the land at the moment). Once these boundaries are defined I have to work out a way of creating a boundary. Not sure yet, may conside a simple post and wire mesh then plant a hedge in front. No idea whet to make the hedge from....

I will also plant the next 6 fruit trees in the 'orchard' area.

There is a lot of 'planting design' to undertake as all I have thought of at the moment is the fruit trees, veg plots and some fruit bushes etc.

We are lucky to have some very mature trees around the garden, however they take the sun off the garden for most of the day so I may have them topped or something.

This thread may go quiet from now and again but I will return to it with either questions and photos of updates etc.

My thoughts was if I kept all the pictures, thoughts, questions and answers on the same thread it will make a comprehensive read.

Regards

Andrew