A Garden Make-over

My garden was a mess.  Several attempts to tidy it up and rearrange it had failed, and it was “neither nowt nor summat” as they would say in Yorkshire!  I had joined the U3A gardening group so decided to invite the members to look at it and give me some ideas. About a year ago several members of the group came down the close and gave me the benefit of their thoughts, which I took on board when trying to plan the new design.  In the end, I asked a couple of gardening friends to carry out the work.  We talked over ideas.  I wanted raised flowerbeds,  a water feature with a waterfall, a patio…. and I wanted the sentry box shed moved across the garden to allow more room for development!.  We agreed a plan, and a price, and once they had the materials work began.  These are Sam(antha) on the right, her husband Paddy, and their young assistant, Simon. The first job was to clear out all the rubbish,

then the first raised beds were begun, a corner unit,of two differing heights, and the long bed at the back of the garden.

Simon began to dig out the earth to fill the raised beds – good earth, says Sam – and after a base was built in the new position, the shed was moved.

Can you see it peeping out from behind the pear tree?

 

This is a better shot!  This is also where I have my washing line, separate from the patio.  The next raised bed was built and planted almost straight away as it was really just built around some well established plants I was going to keep.

The trellis along the back was fixed up – I want a rambling rose along there.

 

Then the hardcore and bags of sand arrived and Sam began randomly laying the slabs that had once been the path when I first moved there 10 years ago, along with some smaller slabs that had been the more recent stepping stone path.   I managed to take a tea-break photo of the gang, along with Ali, Paddy’s son, who had come along to help, and young Fergus, younger of Sam and Paddy’s two boys just back from his first day at school!!!  He’d enjoyed it!

Things were starting to look good once the slabs started going down. 

Take a look at the apples on my laden tree, while we’re about it!  The weather hasn’t actually done them a lot of favours this year and quite a few are cracked and marked, but there are plenty to use myself and loads to give away too.  

  Finally the pond began to take shape, in the spot where the shed had been.  It has two parts, a shallow higher level pond and a deeper lower level one for the pump to sit in, so it pumps the water up to the top and allows it to flow over stones I have collected over several years of holidays to various parts of the country.

It’s not quite as I want it yet, but here’s the water trickling down to the lower pool.  I want to cover up as much of the black plastic as possible, and thought some slate might be good for the waterfall.  Plants will cover the rest eventually!  It’s amazing the difference just a little bit of planting can make and as well as plants around the edge, I’ll be getting some water-plants too, to sit on the marginal shelves.

So, there we are!  On to the final photos!  The table has got as far as the patio but not the chairs!!!  

I liked the way Sam used the old planters.  I have to plant the lilies in one of the planters and there are ferns in another.

There is still a lot of planting to do, and I’m going to ask Sam to do a few wee modifications, but compare this………..     

 

 

with this………. the way it was!!!

  No comparison, really!

Talk again soon.