Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

Later in the day, I got the chainsaw out and cut the stump near the middle entrance, closer to the ground. The Rhododendron was a bit hidden behind it. The cut off section was left in the wood for bugs to use as a grand hotel.



After that, I did some more tying up of branches on this conifer. All the trunks are trying to splay out in all directions. I've already got them tied back to another tree, to stop it leaning over the lawn. The left trunk was pulled in further, closing up a gap in the middle and a number of smaller branches were woven across, to help fill the gap; the same as I'd done on the railway conifer.

 

28th September 2024

I'd ordered some bulbs online, but in order to plant them, I needed to find soil. Under the leaf fall in the wood, was around two to three inches of dead plant matter, from years of seasons passing. Just below that was more soil, this time, absolutely full of slate. Whoever knocked the air raid shelters down and then planted the woodland, covered the whole area in several inches of slate. Over the years, this gradually got buried.

So working in the clearing under the Pinetree, my first job was to rake out all the earth for several inches deep and separate all the slates from the soil.



It took ages! Eventually, I got the clearing cleared, uncovering a large flat stone in the process. I placed this in the middle of the clearing for something firm to stand on when it came time to plant.



One of the few veggie successes this year. The potatoes and cauliflowers turned out okay, but the lettuce struggled and almost every carrot died or had its greenery eaten while very small. The really wet start to the year didn't help and some of the local farmers said they lost crops two years in a row due to rotting in the ground. Even the strawberries got eaten by some little bug. The netting kept the birds away, but some little crawly thing spent months on a sugar high.

 

29th September 2024

Where I planned on having the path, there was a large stone sticking out of the ground. I started to dig it out, to find it was part of the air raid shelter concrete. The further I dug, the larger it became. I went down quite a long way, got it moving in the ground, but it was just too heavy to lever out.



Instead, I used my angle grinder to cut the top into slices, which were then smashed off with a sledgehammer.



Once I'd taken the top down several inches, the hole was backfilled to level. This view is of the clearing, taken from the lawn entrance. It looks quite a large area, but that's just the wide angle lens from my mobile. Roughly, it is seven feet diameter and I planned to fill it with Bluebells and Snowdrops.

 

The clearing of slates continued along the line of the path. Fortunately, as I moved further along the path, the slates were predominantly towards the lawn side. This area is around four feet wide, but will narrow down to about 18 inches, once the bulbs are planted either side.



This tree requires a little bit of ducking to get under a branch that is just out of shot, but the curved branch at the top makes a good hand hold.

 

A little further on, there was more of a clearing to the right, so this would also have a larger volume of bulbs planted. The middle entrance into the wood is just on the left, beyond the tree.



Standing at that mid entrance, looking past the green bush is the way out. There were small clearings to the left and right along here, that would also be heavily planted.



The postman also brought a packet of 100 English Bluebell seeds on the 29th. While I had ordered 120 Bluebell bulbs, to hopefully get flowers in Spring 2025, for just a couple of pounds, I thought I'd give it a go at growing Bluebells from seed, 'though I knew it would be a few years before I'd get any flowers.

 

1st October 2024

On the 1st of October, I spent the first part of the day, taking measurements of the woodland, in order to draw a plan of the path and potential planting areas. I didn't want to spend three figure sums on bulbs, so had to plan out what to plant where, in order to spread out the 256 bulbs, which now included some small daffodils in the mix. In time, from the Bluebell seeds I'm trying to grow and from natural seeding, I hope to spread the flowers further into the woodland and increase the density.

The checkered rule is something I've used for surveys for model building projects. It is four feet long, divided into two inch squares, except for six inches at the far end, divided into inches. Photographs of the rule at several locations through the wood, gave me enough info to draw up a fairly accurate plan.



2nd October 2024

The following morning, using one of the stepping stone templates as a guide, I started planting. I went for one Bluebell in two of the holes and two Snowdrops in the other. There were two different Daffodil types, a ten inch and six inch variety. I kept the same types together.



Because I hadn't yet laid the path, I marked the bulb locations with a small quarter inch square sticks,to make sure I avoided paving over bulbs.

 

3rd October 2024

Another nice day had me back at the conifer, trying to fill in more dead areas on the woodland entrance side. More smaller branches were pulled around from various parts of the tree and woven into the bald parts. In time, they should help to fill in the right side.



I then spent some time, measuring up the lawn edge along the woodland and slate areas, in preparation for next year's project - lawn edging. I'd seen some three feet long, concrete, wood effect 'planks', at the same place we got the stepping stones. At only £6.00 each, they were going to be the cheapest way of dividing the grass from the slates and give me an edge to strim against. I'd need forty six stones in total.

 

4th October 2024

As the days were now getting colder, I decided to winterise the cold frames. I didn't want all the pots sitting on cold concrete, so lifted all the Thyme up on sheets of foam or planks on wooden blocks.



The concrete paving should still heat up in the winter sun, but shouldn't now suck the heat out of the soil when night falls.



Later in the day, we went back to the paving supplier and ordered up the lawn edging. I knew it would be a few weeks to cast them all, but as this was a Spring 2025 project, I wasn't in a hurry. I just thought it better to order them in case prices went up. This is the example on show. I'll be setting them into the ground by around half, giving around a four to five inch upstand to strim against.

 

5th October 2024

While at the paving supplier the day before, we'd checked out some decorative concrete planters for the patio, but decided they weren't a style we liked. I wanted something for longer term bringing seedlings on, like the Bluebell seeds, before they are finally planted out in the wood.

The next day, we had a look around some other stores with gardening sections, like B&M etc., finding these plastic pots, which from memory were £4.00 each. We got four to go next to the cold frames, but are keeping them in the shed until Spring when they will be needed.



14th October 2024

Late in the day, a wagon turned up with forty one stepping stones. There was enough room to get it down the drive, so they were unloaded by the workshop hedge.



Wasting no time, I started carrying them down the garden in piles of three. They were spread along the route of the path, to get the spacings approximately correct and I planned to start laying them the next day.

 

15th October 2024

Starting at the top entrance to the wood, the first couple of stones just needed the slates raking aside to lay them and the slates were then pulled back flush.



For the rest of the stones, I marked around them with a trowel, then dug out the soil/clay to as level as I could get. The clay was quite springy and it took a few trial seatings to get the stones stable. For some, I used a little sand to bed them on to take up the slight uneven surface.



They were inset to around 50% of their depth, while the rest of the height would be taken up with chopped bark. I got around fifteen laid that day, stopping around the middle entrance to the wood. There were a few had to be slightly repositioned due to tree roots and a few smaller roots were just cut and pulled out.

 

17th October 2024

Work continued two days later, working on the stretch from the middle entrance to the grassed area to the rear. The path meanders a little here, around the areas where the bulbs were planted.



It was slow, back breaking work, lifting the stones in and out, digging and scraping to get them fairly level. I think I got another eleven laid that day. Around the back of the wood, I repositioned some of the stones, to follow the rise in the ground better and to create a slightly larger planting area to the right of the path.

 

That looks good, I admire your stamina!

 

It's all really hard work and I feel like I haven't stopped since I moved here. However I can safely say, I don't feel my age; I feel about 30 years older!!

 

18th October 2024

A surprise delivery on the 18th was around half of the lawn edging. The company had got these cast so far and decided to deliver part of the order, so they didn't get sold by mistake.



After that, I got back to digging. I was moving out of the wood, into the grasslands! Fortunately, there's been quite a lot of rain, so the soil and clay were easy to separate and lift out the top surface, plus a lot of roots. I was only clearing the area of the stepping stones for now, trying to get them all down before the weather turned. The rest of the grass would also need to be lifted and probably a new thin layer of top soil for the Thyme and other plants.

 

19th October 2024

The following day, I finished the stones back around to the lawn. I was struggling a bit with motivation, as it looked cold and damp outside, but once out, it was surprisingly warm for mid October. Even in the short time we've lived here, we've had snow here at this time of year.



22nd October 2024

I spent the day raking up leaves from the Hawthorn path and on the lawn. I followed that by mowing the lawn on a high setting, to catch the leaves I missed. When I finished, I went around the garden, getting some latest progress pictures. This one is a more unusual angle. I was crouching down under the edge of my neighbour's conifer, at the back of the railway, for a slightly different view. The cut down Fuchsia is in the right foreground and following advice here, I'll cut it back further in the Spring.