My first garden!

Hi All,

I'm not sure where to stick this thread so I've dumped it here I've had a glance through the forum and I like the "journals" that you guys have been doing of your gardens. It's great to see how things develop and there are some pretty inspiring ideas out there. So I'm going to do the same. Who knows, maybe I might be too at some point

As my intro message says, I've just moved house and it's my first garden, which is about 10x10m and knee high with weeds. I'm already loving the fact that I have complete control over what I'm allowed to do... even the fiancee has given me complete freedom! It is a bit daunting though...

The overall plan is to:

• make the garden secluded from the front road
• deter the cats from using it as a throughfare
• have a usable space (washing line, outdoor living space, BBQs etc)
• be as green as possible (composting and wildlife friendly)
  
• have tonnes of colour in the garden
• get something back from the garden (fruit, veg etc)

The limitations are:

• It's a rented property an anything I spend on the garden is a waste unless I can take it with me when I move house in 5 years.
• I need to save up for a mortgage deposit so it needs to be as cheap as possible.

Now! On to the journal

My sneaky fiancee took a picture when I first started working on the garden. As you can see it's not much to look at! It's a shame she didn't warn me about taking pictures otherwise I'd've worn a belt! Nevertheless, I've followed the forum rules and censored my pants.



It's not easy to see here because the grass is about 4 inches high but the twice previous owners had a path running next to the washing line and a greenhouse in the back left corner. The following owners (the previous owners to us) took out the path and made the patio larger. The problem is that the patio was crooked as a witch's nose so my first afternoon was spent pulling out the flag stones and deweeding it and levelling it. I've made the patio smaller too because it was unnecessarily large for the garden.

The other issue with this is that the hardcore that the path was laid on now has grass growing through it. Also, there is a trench where the path was and a raised mound in the lawn under the washing line. Mowing it on the highest setting was tedious at best. So I decided that I was going to level out this bit in the middle and make it easier to mow.



It took about 5 hours to dig out all that turf and when I came to putting it back down (like you can see in the bottom left) I couldn't help but notice the lawn had way too many weeds. My granddad was militant with his lawns and they didn't have a single weed in them. He's passed that trait onto me and I couldn't face putting all that turf back down knowing how many weeds were in it. So I thought about turfing and seeding. Seeds would get eaten by the birds (which flock to this garden in packs of 30) and I don't have an outside tap YET so turf could be an issue.

The next step was to call some turfers and get some quotes. After a few days of getting quotes I settled on one guy who's coming on Sunday to rotivate the ground and lay some turf. I've spent about 20 hours on the garden now and it looks like this






The bamboo canes are to help me map out where the lawn is going... believe it or not!

So far that's one skip filled using a trug and there's another pile in the garden waiting to be skipped too. I severly underestimated the amount of turf to throw away Once the ground is rotivated then I will undoubtedly get a load of rubble to throw away too so it may work out for the best

 

Ahhhh @wiseowl ... I've heard your name a lot on GC! Thanks for the motivating comment... it's quite hard to keep going when the garden is a sea of brown I've been humming to myself like a looney to keep myself going with it haha

___

Ok on the fishkeeping forums I used to update my journals, but always a few days behind (poor management... not on purpose ) and when people advised/commented on things, it was too late because it had already happened a few days ago. So, in light of this, I'm going to get completely up to date on this thread to stop this from happening on GC

The fiancee and I went to "unnamed diy shop" to get an extension cable for the lawnmower but they didn't have any, to my surprise! But while we were there we decided to have a look around the garden section outside. That was a mistake! £100 later we came back with 2 planters, some compost, 4 lavender plants and 4 reduced price clementis. I threw together some planters to go outside the patio doors and they've got bees buzzing all over them :D The lavender plants were quite bulky so I split them all into 2 parts. I have to confess that I divided one plant horribly and the roots were divided in the ratio 90:10. That poor plant has got some serious root growing to do if it's going to survive! The clementis was fairly rough looking when I bought it. Snapped branches, bits of dead stems and not much in the way of flowers (hence the reduced price) and I had to prune them back pretty hard but I'm willing to wait until next year to see the results. In each planter there is a dark purple clementis and a ight pink clementis in opposite corners.



The plant in the middle is a gift from when my fiancee's granddad was clearing out his garden. I'm sure I can find it a nice spot somewhere...

I had a pretty grim experience earlier on today in this part of the garden, near the top of the drive


Not only did I have to dig out shards of glass and rubble, but I also found a bag. I was curious so I peaked inside said bag and boy was that a mistake!! Let's say that one of the previous owners decided to bury their cat, or someone elses cat. It didn't look very well... or alive. I put it aside and carried on, only to find another bag.



Yep... another one. Let's add that to the pile over there....

Oh another bag.



I'm not even looking inside. I know what it is. Add that to the pile.

Either the previous owner had several unlucky cats and gave them a nice send off or they were a serial cat disposer in the neighbourhood.

Feeling rather queezy at this point, I finished of heaving bricks and rubble out of that corner and decided that was enough digging for one day. Instead of being destructive, I wanted to be constructive for a bit. I decided to move the flagstones from the wall next to my patio doors so that they were further across and then I dragged out the trellis planter that has been sitting inside for days. I don't have a drill so I had to drill pilot holes using a dremmell and then screw in all the screws by hand. Safe to say I feel like I've been arm wrestling with Popeye! It's all finished now. In place, level with the wall (the patio slopes down to drain water away from the house) and I've filled it with about 60L of multipurpose compost. It's about 58% peat apparently. No idea what that means but I'm sure I'll learn soon enough.



Bright red broom handle! Can't loose it



The plan: Images aren't of my plants. They're there to help picture my plan.

The plan for this is to grow Acalypha Pendula 'Mini Red' around the front. It has red flowers that look like cat's tails and should have red/brown flowers all year. They will spill over the edge and make it less "square".



Behind that will be Epimedium A Perralchium 'frohnleiten' barrenwort. These are little yellow flowers that stand up on 20-30cm tall stems. I hope these will be tall enough to see if the cats tail plant spills over the edge.



And up the back trellis will be Late dutch honeysuckle



I've also given up with the bamboo teepee I made earlier. I sowed some runner beans straight into the soil to see how good the soil is. They still haven't broken through the surface, about a month from sowing. Lesson learnt: need better topsoil! The ones inside are doing well though!



They started life as little broad beans which had laser etched letters on them. When they grew to be seedlings, they had the letters written on the leaves which was cool. But now they have true leaves and could do with being planted outside. I might be able to get some beans before the frost kicks in!

I've also got some potato bags which I am going to use to grow some charlotte potatoes ready for xmas. I've had these grow bags for years but felt odd using them in someone elses garden so I saved them for when I move out. They're currently sat in front of the radiator waiting to be set up when my seed potatoes arrive.



And finally, I've poured some lemon juice onto the horizontal posts of the fence in the corner. I heard that cats don't like citrus smells because it messes with their ability to smell other things. Hopefully it will work but who knows.

PHEW I think I'm up to date!! I have a rough sketch of the garden plan but I will save that for the next post.

Any comments on the trellis planter is welcome. It's in full shade with about 2-3 hours or sun per day so the choice of plants is limited.

Cheers,

Rad91.

 

No it isn't... I've never seen planter lining before tbh. I haven't planted anything in the compost yet so I'll scoop it out and line it (I'm glad I kept this thread up to date now!) I don't have any old compost bags so I will have to buy some liner. I did, however, put some pebble/crocks down in the bottom to help drainage so it wasn't a complete failure

I like the idea of less watering (because of using less water, not because I cba watering) and can see how the liner helps with that. But will it make that much difference in terms of the lifespan of the planter? Like I said, I will line it, I'm just curious to see how much longer you think it will last The other planters with Jasmin in aren't lined and I don't intend on lining them now that they're planted. It will be good to see how the planters differ with and without liners

 

You've certainly worked hard on the garden Rad91 and once the new lawn is down it will look a whole lot different.

 

I'm certainly hoping so! I can't wait to walk around on something without getting dirt in my shoes

And when the lawn is down the garden is 50% done (in terms of space, not effort haha)

__

Next update!

I haven't done much in the garden really, but I have made a fair bit of progress! The plumber came round and managed to fix a leaking gutter, a leaking boiler and fit an external tap all in less than 10 minutes. I have no idea how he did it but I'm not complaining!



Oohh shiny! The best part is that I can attach my RODI filter to it which means that I can remove any chlorine etc from the water and add that to my fish tanks. When I clean them (weekly) all the algae, nitrates and bits of plant material gets sucked out and I can use that on the garden! I've read that some gardeners use a chlorine filter on their hosepipes because chlorine kills the useful bacteria in the soil. So this RODI filter could have secondary benefits

Anyway, back to proper gardening... I've taken a closer look at the trellis planter and the corners are pretty awkward.



Honestly, I don't think I'm going to line this planter because it would be awkward to get a flush fit around the outer walls. In future I will though.

Which brings me onto my next update! I've had some deliveries lately. In my living/dining room I've got a split level raised bed (6'x4'), an L-shaped raised bed, a 6' cold frame, a cloche (low tunnel) and a compost heap. I'm having a house warming party tomorrow so they've all been stashed away. Except for the grow bags, which have been put outside.





In each one, there's 5 charlotte potatoes on 4" of compost and then buried them with another 3". Gave them a good watering and I was planning add some slow release fertiliser pellets as I "earth-up" so that there's food in the soil when it starts getting towards winter. That way I don't have to add fertiliser in liquid form and overwater them. They will just slowly dissolve over time.

And in the living room I've got some sunflowers growing. It's a bit late, I know.



Hopefully tomorrow I will get a load of flagstones laid in the front garden. After that, I will have most of the patio space cleared. Everything's going quite well!

Keep your fingers crossed for nice weather this weekend folks!

 

Fingers duly crossed that the weather is in your favour

 

Well I'm happy! The weather is holding up so far (with plans for heavy downpour later this afternoon). Right now, the turfers are here laying the new lawn down. Hopefully I won't need to water it tonight because Mother Nature will do it for me

To put things into context, the ground (which I've being digging up by hand lately) is so hard that two blokes and a rotivator struggled to loosen the top few inches. There's lots of swearing being going on but they've finally finished prepping the ground and are now laying the new turf! Wahoo!

A couple of updates... On the front garden I have a driveway which is the width of a car. That means you have to step out onto the grass. Or if you walk past the car, you are on the grass. That's fine except the lawn is getting worn down and in winter it's going to get pretty grim with mud being brought into the house. So I've taken the excess flagstones from round the back and stuck them in the front. I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out!

Before:



And after:




Underneath the lawn was YET MORE hardcore so these flagstones shouldn't move. I'm just going to let the grass grow in between them and then probably get a few shrubs dotted along the side of the path just to break up the garden a little bit.

And finally, I've went to get a hosepipe so that I could water the lawn properly over the next few weeks. I was being a smarty pants and thought "I'll make sure I get a connector so that I can actually attach the hosepipe to the tap!"... thinking I'd outsmarted my own idiocy. Well I got a hosepipe on a reel and a tap fitting and a sprinkler, but didn't realise that I need ANOTHER hosepipe to connect the reel to the tap. Sheeesh!

It's obvious now, but not when I was in the shop with hands full of stuff! I'm going to take about 1m of hosepipe off the end of the reel and that's that problem solved, luckily.

The next thing I need to be aware of is my fiancee running though the sprinkler mist

The next update will hopefully show the new lawn in an empty, clear garden. I'm hoping one more skip will do it! I might even get my raised beds in too!

 

It's all happening in your gardens Rad1! Looking forward to seeing the new lawn.

 

Loving this "British Summer" weather! The lawn was put down yesterday and it's been raining ever since. I'm pretty sure it's going to rain all of today too. So the lawn will defo be getting the water it needs and the roots will hopefully be able to push down into the topsoil they put down. The two turfer people were swearing like crazy yesterday They brought a MASSIVE rotivator and even that couldn't break up the soil. Not joking... it was half the size of my car! I had to dig it up by hand earlier on so I was just sat inside laughing

But after a few hours, they rotivated it, levelled it, put some topsoil down, levelled it again and put the new turf down. There's some bits where the strips of turf don't quite meet properly but it will fill in when the grass grows.

Want to take a look?



Here it is...



The straight lines are really helping to make it look organised!

I just need to make sure it settles properly. I've been told not to fertilise it, not to walk on it for 4 weeks and not to mow it until it's growing "vigorously". I'm not sure about watering it though. I've been told that I should water it for 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening. I've also read that it is better to water it 2 out of 3 days so that on the third day it doesn't get water handed to it on a plate and the grass sends roots down to search for water. I'll be checking out the lawns section on GC soon

As for the garden plans, I'm going to get a skip and get rid of the rest of the turf. There are some flagstones and I'm not sure if I should keep them or not. That will become clear in due course.

I've got a cold frame which is quite low and short, but 6ft wide and that will go in the "hole" in the lawn. And behind it, to the left in the picture but still in the hole, I wan't to put 3 fruit trees in. A plum, apple and cherry. they will be grown in root bags so that I can take them with me and the roots won't mess up the lawn. They are dwarf variety so they grow to 6ft tall and stay nice and thin.

In the little notch in the lawn at the top of the picture in the middle, that's going to have a nice big hydrangea. Next to that will be a compost heap. It will be kind of hidden that way.

On the right, there is plenty of space. I have an L-shaped raised bed which will go right in front of the patio. The split level raised bed will go against the lawn and should get full sun all day in summer. not sure about winter.

Unfortunately, I started unpacking the coldframe and found that it was damaged. So that will have to wait for a bit.

Now... I'm off to read about new lawn care

 

@Radiation91 you have done a fantastic job . .
You really have transformed the garden , I can't wait for you to get your plants in , it will look different again then.
Don't forget it's almost bulb time, it would be nice for you to have some spring bulbs to brighten up the garden in the early part of the year (just a suggestion)
Happy gardening & I hope your cold frame is sorted out quickly