my first garden!

I'd marked out a small lawn and sown grass seed over the winter and was super pleased with how it looked by spring and was finally starting to see a garden and start putting in plants, which had either been through several house moves with me (hibiscus) or were cheap T&M buys - pinks, heuchara and the two original peonies were looking a lot happier for not being surrounded by weeds. I was also feeling v happy that fence painting was finished on this part of the garden!

 

by the middle of summer it was all starting to fill out nicely and I'd added an arch for a bit of height and so I could expand on the plant obession with some climbers! Still no proper path though yet or step down into the garden but it's still all progress And v pleased with how well plants that had been in pots for years responded to being planted in the ground - the purple sage by the step doubled in size in one season!





the rhubarb was in the garden when we moved in and with the brambles and weeds cleared started to really go for it! The big pot was an amazing gift from my OH's mum as they were downsizing from a costwold barn conversion to a new build with a much smaller garden so she was happy to gift the things they no longer had room for (which also included the fluer de lys edging on the bed too

 

so we'd sorted the bottom of the garden and now the top had a lawn and everyfink (!) so now to sort out the middle which had variously been a kayak store, log pile, brick pile and general dumping ground as you can see below!

yr 1



yr2



we ended up selling the kayaks to a guy from Newark and when he took them back (on a roof rack up the a46) a rather confused frog staggered out when he unloaded them! So at least we knew the garden was wildlife friendly and suggested the next project should be to build a pond!

 

so the next plan was to build a small pond, as I'd grown up with a pond (helped my folks to dig it out when I was only 5) and love the wildlife you get with ponds. We're also quite close to a local nature reserve with large ponds so was hoping some things might find there way to our (much!) smaller attempt. I don't have any pics of the actual digging as I think we were v keen to crack on and get it dug and filled, but that was a lesson learnt as I think we were a little too hasty and should have spent more time digging and levelling the sides - as there was always a little too much liner on show for my likeing and I think the sides were a bit steep but hey its all about the learning



so by this stage it's dug and we've lined the edge with stones that we'd found in the garden as we cleared it (which were a great find!). We used the spoil from the pond to build up two banked areas, one just gently sloped and the other with a wall made from the same stones. The most difficult thing about the pond was actually finding the plants I wanted for it as we were doing it at what seemed to be the wrong time of year for buying pond plants but we managed to find a few bits and our kind neighbour gave us a cutting of their yellow iris too


my attempt at a stumpery! V spare on the stumps but a good use for the roots of the buddlieas we took out. Planted this up with a Ballerina rose from D Austin, more heuchara (not that I have a thing about them or anything!), bit of London Pride and a phormimum (sp?). Bank in the background has tiarella and pyracantha (and check out the growing ferns in the first border I made!)



our attempt at a 'drystone wall' - worked alright, no mortar just careful (v careful!) stacking


I thought a wall was a good idea also as it gives a space for the creepy crawlies to hide away and I'm all for more bugs and beetles in the garden (even though the neighbours get to hear some, erm, 'choice' language when I uncover a spider when weeding!)

 

Day dreamer.......no day dreaming with you. Lots of hard work and skill is paying dividends. Brilliant

 

so that was the end of our 2nd year in the garden and I think it was starting to come together nicely


Path was nearly done, the wide slabs were v cheap from b&q and we found out quickly there was a reason for that as they broke in half v easily! The idea with those was that having a lengthways slab across would slow movement along the path more than if it were just gravel


The spikey thing I can never remember the name of was also there when we moved in but it had been really blackened by a v bad winter that year, so I cut it back to ground level and in two years it grew this much!

so the jobs for the next year were to sort out this area with some slabs

and start fence painting again, sigh!


view from upstairs this year which is a bit of change from the start (and check out that greenhouse full of toms! )

 

I think this was one of my favourite years in the garden, so here are just some pictures of how it was looking in spring and early summer (perfect place for daydreaming! )





so pleased with how the ferns filled out so quickly! but always room for more (and I've just noticed how in most of my pics there us usually a bag of weeds or prunings knocking around!)



and by summer the bed at the top is really full - I quite like the sort of unkempt look in case you can't tell!

 

@day dreamer what a transformation- soooo pretty and proper wildlife friendly country garden a lovely tranquil place for you all to enjoy

Happy gardening ​

 

next to do - to deck! kept it really simple, scaffold planks from the local wood recycling centre (excellent places, brilliant people, google for yours!) and a frame raised on spare bits of paving from the old crazy paving that was on the driveway. Also how nicely has the bank filled out with the rose and foxgloves, and a giant scabious which is just fabulous (plus the ever present rubarb, which I think works quite well just for the foliage and the amount of crumble we get is a great bonus!)






ta dah! (and that's my bro in the background all ready with a chair for a well earned rest!)

 

another year and another project - this was all about the patio which was one of the last areas to be done and had looked a bit of state over the years, used a plant creche most of the time and a place that harboured many many slugs and snails!

When we moved in it was a bit weedy and just concrete




and we went on to make it clearly much better (:P) with the addition of piles of rubble and old floor!


then the next year some plants got added into the mix and a motorbike so perhaps an improvement on the first year




at least by the 3rd year we had some new windows and doors! and a bit less rubbish but still not the most inspiring of spaces




but my OH made me a window box to cheer it up, especially after I realised a metal planter in the style I wanted was just too expensive!

and then finally we took a jackhammer to the concrete, which was incredibly satisfying!


the plan with the patio was to build raised beds for veg and herbs and have a built in seating area and kind of country style paving and gravel mixed together as I wanted it to look fairly soft and not too much hard paving (there was a lot of standing around and assessing the slab layout while doing this! )




(and more help from an awesome Dad!) the breeze blocks are the base for the seating area and also the walls of the raised beds with the old kitchen sink making a small pond balanced between a higher and lower bed

 

the rest of the garden was filling out well, we had been there for four years at this point

(and please don't judge my lack of lawn mowing, oops!)



more plastic bags of weeds and compost in shot!

and plastic chairs, why did I never move them out of the way to take photos!?




can't believe how much it's all grown, the pittosporum next to the jasmine was less than a foot high and in 4 years its close to the top of the fence! and the peony is just my favourite thing, I've no idea which one it is as it was there when we arrived but the flowers are scented and practically the size of my face - it's just a ridiculous OTT wonderful plant!



my favourite spot!

 

so to finish the last year at our first home and first garden was last year - I had a wonderful time making and growing the garden and was v sad to leave :( but hope that the new owners enjoy it as much as I did
unfortunately that year I didn't get great shots of the final year which is sad, just too busy with finding a new challenge but here are some before and after final pics

patio before (2011)

patio after (2016) (and yes, those raised beds never got used for veg just more flowers!) and this also shows the seating area made from more scaffold planks


before


after


bbq before (that brick pile has so much potential! :P)


finished bbq - we made a slate topped side for plates and food but somehow surprisingly it just ended up with plants on it (free slate just found in the shed!)


top border 2011


top border 2016, tbh not it's best as taken late summer and it's more of a spring garden


fern border at the bottom about a year in


and in 2016, getting a little overgrown but one of my favourite bits

view back up to the house before

and five years later

 

so on to a new challenge....


because clearly I don't have enough to do (and mainly because I have a plant obession and there is never enough room!) it seemed like a good idea to get six acres... :O

(I'm sooo going to need some help and advice on this one big time!!)