Intro with pictures!

I'd like to introduce myself to the forum!
I am a novice gardener . In July 2009, my husband and I moved into a house with a large urban garden.

As the house was practically falling apart, the garden has been a long time coming (and the house isn't quite there yet either :lol: )

In 2009, after a little bit of TLC, the garden was tidied up to look like this


Unfortunately, the "lawn" went all the way to the house and there was a big damp problem as soil, etc, had collapsed against the brickwork above the dpc.
So early 2010, we invested a lot of time and energy (and some money for materials) into the outdoors and started a big digging job! There is no access to the back, other than through the house, so we had to do everything by hand :eek: ... This meant it actually took us almost a while year to finish the job (no joke! We both work full time so it was a weekend and evening job when the energy was available)


Fast forward to now, we have a patchy lawn (and a big dog that likes to wee on it, dig it up and turf it up by running around :D ), paving stones for a shed (at the back, not yet laid), a broken greenhouse (from aforementioned dog's ball!), a weed-infested vegetable area behind the greenhouse BUT also some lovingly established plants. We can't afford anything fancy, so I buy twigs off Ebay & Freecycle and try to grow them - this has yielded loads of roses, a successful forsythia, several hawthorns for a little anti-dog hedge, two vines, two fig (not yet planted out), two edible cherry bushes (planted out today!), a rockery (i.e. a place to put all the stones I still keep finding in the lawn!), some lavenders, strawberries, blueberries and other bits and bobs ...
So here is the current stand of the baby garden - may it live long and prosper ... It will take us decades to recover from the back pain!

A few weeks ago


Today


I hope to really get involved with it now - I feel surprising affection for my garden, so I suppose I am now officially a gardener (and maybe coming out of novice level and into intermediate level with my experience of the last two years of sitting up at night nursing little twigs)

 

Hi Soot

Welcome.

You see what happens. You spend some time sorting the garden and the Sun comes out.

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner Soot.

Bit of a mammoth undertaking there

 

Welcome to GC Soot.

 

Hi welcome to the site. Your garden has a great size to it bet you could do all sorts with that much room!

 

Good evening Soot and welcome to the site. Garden looks good, well done both.

 

Hi there and

 

to GC Soot, nice work.

 

Hi and welcome.

You've done a cracking job there, well done.

And guess what's particularly interesting. You garden story is almost the same as mine. I too have no access to the garden except through the house, the garden was knackered when we moved in, and have spent loads of time trying to get it in order.

I see you've lifted the boring straight straight line flagstone path. That was the first thing I did with mine

 

Thanks guys -- it's nice to share what we've done rather than whine about the mammoth task ahead. There is so much to do, but I have to (mostly!) planned out in my mind with winter and spring waves of planting and establishing. I can only look after so many young plants at a time, so I have to be careful not to overload myself the garden ... and this new-found odd desire to know each plant and its habits and favourite foods is very troubling!

Thanks for the good wishes. Much appreciated!!

 

Hi Soot welcome to GC