Gardening Between the Showers

Hi, I'm new here. I love gardens and gardening, but am often really pushed for time when it comes to getting things done. I do work and also help run a greyhound and lurcher rescue. In addition, I am a registered hedghog carer and most years I end up hand-rearing a litter or two of orphaned baby hedgehogs, so if anyone needs help or advice about an abandoned or injured hedgehog, I may be able to help.
We moved into our house 7 years ago and at the time our small garden had so many overgrown trees and shrubs that we actually couldn't get to the end of the garden path for several months. Gradually we did manage to get it livable, took out most of the overgrown shrubs and some of the trees. In January of this year, I injured my knee and couldn't do any gardening at all. When I finally could get outside to deal with it all, my garden had turned into the Amazon Jungle, just unbelievable!!!!I decided that enough was enough, came back inside and redesigned the garden completely, getting rid of the shrubbery and creating a nice peaceful grassy area (fenced off from the dogs!) and a woodland garden under the weeping birch at the back. We also now have a dry-stone raised bed and a gravelled cottage garden area. It's still in progress, but it's been hard work running outside to garden for 10 minutes between the showers! We have taken out so many shrubs and trees that the workers at the local tip are starting to give us suspicious looks!
The garden now feels and looks twice the size it used to be and feels very nice and peaceful instead of chaotic.
I'm starting work on the front garden now!
Looking forward to meeting you and getting expert advice.....although I'm really rubbish at remembering latin names!

 

Hi Flowerchild boy you have been busy it must have been really hard work to transform your jungle into your own little Eden it does sound so stunning.
Maybe you could post some pictures?
I'm sure most of us would love to see you hard work and it doesn't hurt to show off a little bit too, after all you have work hard on it so you might as well be proud of it!
Oh and welcome to this wonderful friendly forum!
Helen.xxx.

 

Hi Flowerchild sounds like you have been busy.
Welcome to GC

 

Hello Flowerchild. I think that is the beauty of our common hobby. you are trying to get rid of a jungle and some of us are trying to create one. No two people have the same ideas. Great isn't it. Welcome to GC.

John

 

Hi Flowerchild and a warm welcome from me too.

Your garden sounds really nice and looking forward to seeing some pictures. How big is it, it sounds huge. You could also post some photos of the dogs, hedgehogs and any other animals you might have in the Pets Corner.

 

Hi Flowerchild welcome to GC I am afraid my garden is very easy to run just a few flower and plants around the grass (it used to be called a lawn) but now it is grass which I just keep cutting. You will get lots of hints from this forum Jazz :D :D :D

 

Thankyou everyone for your warm welcome. I have posted some pictures of last year's batch of hedgehogs under the Wildlife Section, and will post a picture of my two greyhounds under Pets at some point. I'm having problems downloading my camera onto the computer at the moment, but will get some pictures of the garden as soon as I can.
By the way, my garden is quite small, not huge at all! I think when we moved in we had 14 full-grown trees! It was actually quite dark and oppresive, I hate to remove trees, but they had to go. I did keep the really beautiful ones though, we have three left.

 

Hi Fc welcome to G C enjoy the forum.

 

Hi Flowerchild Welcome to GC From Scotland

 

Hi Flower,

Welcome to GC.

 

Hi Flower child and a very warm welcome to GC from me also, a lot of good friendly folks on hear and some of them only have a balcony but its astonishing how much they grow on them. enjoy your stay.

 

hi and welcome , hope you enjoy the site have fun

 

hi and welcome from me to