The second phase in the garden is now underway, and well towards completion! We decided to focus on the flower bed next to the one I did in stage 1 last month, but had quite a few more problems to overcome with it!
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| March 2014 |
The “before” image I am using, was actually taken in March last year, but it’s the closest I have, because I forgot to take another before we started working last weekend. Anyway, the hole in the middle of the lawn was turfed last year. Just under two weeks ago, Dave dug out the massive fuchsia bush in the middle of the bed you see on the left of the above image. It had gotten so big and was eating into the lawn, so needed dealing with. So, we decided to take the whole thing out.
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| Taken from the far right of the first image |
Much better! There was also a bush above the dry-stone wall, which you can see there – Dave took that out as well, while I was at work last week, leaving me with a clean slate. He even dismantled the wall to get the roots out, which was a great help.
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| Measuring up! |
This week, I started on the brick border, so that we can divide the lawn and flower bed more tidily, and also prevent any lawn damage similar to that caused by the fuchsia in the past! We had a big pile of bricks left over from a BBQ that we were going to build last year, but the decided against it, so thought we would use them in the border. I dug out the trench on Monday, so that it was ready for me to begin laying the bricks on Wednesday (after my trip to Glastonbury).
The lawn will go right up to the brick edging, once I have sewn the seed into the dead patch, so that it will make mowing a lot easier in the future – an added bonus! This is how it was looking after working on it on Wednesday…
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| Woop |
It’s a bit wonky in places, and kind of lumpy bumpy, but all in all I was pretty pleased with my attempt! I unfortunately ran out of bricks before I could get to the end of the bed, but I will finish that soon (there’s no massive rush). Today after giving everything a good dig over, and Dave taking out the last bits of a massive ivy root, this is what we are left with:
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| 19th April |
We like being able to see that tree on the second tier, better. Throughout the year it changes from green, to whites and pinks, which is quite unusual! The smaller birds also quite like flitting around in there, so that is always great to see too, which we couldn’t when it was shielded by the fuchsia! The bricking makes it look much tidier as well. I am intending to make this bed red, orange and yellow, so hopefully that will look nice. Dave has ordered me a bird bath, which I am going to build up on a little mound and then hopefully surround it with some rocks and make it more of a feature. We will see what happens though.
Other garden stuff that has happened this week: we gave one of the bushes on that bottom tier a really good pruning. It had gotten so tall and really needed attacking, so that filled yesterday afternoon. I also edged the paving stones that run up the lawn in our front garden, which makes a massive difference! I didn’t realise how large the stones actually were under all that grass, so they look nice and uniform now. It’s surprising how the smallest efforts really make something look so much tidier! I have put up the insect and bee hotel that Rich & Sarah gave me for my birthday! That now lives in “Nature Garden”, and will hopefully attract some different wildlife. I have also put out the beautiful love birds that Dave gave me for my birthday – they’re so cute! Finally, I have been enjoying watching my plants from the first flower bed, beginning to flourish.
All in all, it has been a really productive couple of weeks! The next job will be to plant this bed up. I also want to take out another large bush, but our garden recycling bin is currently near overflowing, so I will have to wait until that’s been emptied, before I can do any more on that front. This bed should, with some luck, be completed in the next few weeks though. Fingers crossed!