Getting on with the garden

CB came back from Yorkshire the following week, armed with cut slabs to finish the patio area and his bag of tools!  We visited the local builders merchant and bought cement, sand, a bag of pebbles and some lengths of decking timber, and back at home CB got stuck in!  Cement was mixed and the completion of the patio eagerly anticipated!  The channels between the slabs were filled with cement, and the pebbles laid in the cement; and gaps between the

 

slabs were also filled in with the cement.  It looks superb now that

 

the cement has dried and the pebbles are fixed in place.

 

Next, CB began sawing lengths of timber to make planters.  I had shown him photos of some planters I had seen in a garden centre, so he set to and knocked up a set of three!  Here are the first two, done one afternoon, while the third was made the next morning.  CB filled the planters with pots of plants I had bought the previous weekend.  I love how they look, but I really must get them planted in the ground.  I’ll get some more for the planters.

I managed to get this shot of CB, sound asleep.  No wonder, he was tired!  He’d spent the last couple of days working practically non-stop!  What a star!

Since then I have been moving the planters around to see how I can use them to make the patio a little more secluded!  I think making the patio into a small room with planters either side of the “doorway” would be nice.  As you can see, the nearer part of the garden still has to have something done to it.

This is the garden from the top of the steps to my front door.    Looking down, CB is in the completed patio area, but we still have to think how to improve the path area.  The entrance to my garden is between the left side of my neighbour’s greenhouse and the wall, so I want a solid path to the steps.  I bought some paving slabs at the local auction last weekend so they’ll get used up quite well.  They were delivered today, all 30 of them.  I think I can use them all up!

You may have noticed the blocked up window on the high wall behind the parasol in the photo two above.  There was a big building there once, and I would love to have the window unblocked and use it as a feature.   Next door’s garden is “inside” the old building, which was in all probability, originally a mill building; subsequently used as a dance hall, before all except this wall was demolished.  The window is high enough that you wouldn’t see the garden next door, but it would give her more sunlight and me a view of some sky.  We’ve had our differences in the past though, when she complained about the ivy on my side growing over the wall to her side so she probably wouldn’t be up for the idea!  (The ivy proved to be a big bone of contention, so I had it taken off the wall last year and of course the window was revealed.)  So CB has cut out some cat shapes in wood and I’ll sit one on the window sill!  As my late friend Vina used to say, “Emphasise, don’t improvise!”

So we’re getting there!  I must play around with some measurements to see how the other half of the garden can be paved.  CB came up with some ideas while we were talking on the phone tonight, so I’ll take those ideas on board too!

Right then!  I’m off to play with little  paper paving slabs now. 

Talk again soon.