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'Missing in action'- why I've been away..
Padawan
Veteran
Hi all, I thought I'd drop by to let you all know that I'm very much still alive and thinking of you all, and that I've been rather tied up with events offline to be able to spend much time in the cybersangha. At the Padawan household, we've been rather busy preparing the garden, which has taken rather a lot more work than we previously thought it would, and we hope to be finished in the next few weeks.
We discovered that the whole garden would need new topsoil, because rainfall and natural wellsprings in neighbouring gardens washed it all away, leaving us with hard clay that's good for pottery, maybe, but no so much so for plants!
Over the past few weeks, we've been shovelling ten tons of new soil to prepare for the lawn amongst other things, and we've developed a real appreciation for the way in which the soil, plants and animals interact in the garden, and planning and working on everything has been almost meditative in the way it calms the spirits.
At the moment, I'm temporarily out of action, as I bruised my ribs during the course of moving some old concrete (Which I was clever enough to be underneath when I dropped it!) but although I'm bruised and battered, I'm very much unbowed, and hope to be back with you some more very soon, once I've recuperated and we have things sorted out.:)
We discovered that the whole garden would need new topsoil, because rainfall and natural wellsprings in neighbouring gardens washed it all away, leaving us with hard clay that's good for pottery, maybe, but no so much so for plants!
Over the past few weeks, we've been shovelling ten tons of new soil to prepare for the lawn amongst other things, and we've developed a real appreciation for the way in which the soil, plants and animals interact in the garden, and planning and working on everything has been almost meditative in the way it calms the spirits.At the moment, I'm temporarily out of action, as I bruised my ribs during the course of moving some old concrete (Which I was clever enough to be underneath when I dropped it!) but although I'm bruised and battered, I'm very much unbowed, and hope to be back with you some more very soon, once I've recuperated and we have things sorted out.:)
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Far better to make gardens than just about anything else in the world, I think! The 'improvements' that are destroying our dear National Health Service were typified for me when our local hospital removed its garden to build a new atrium of glass and concrete.
Why not post a pic or two of the work-in-progress.
Hope the bruises are not too painful. I find that arnica is sovereign for them.
Take it easy and enjoy the new creation!
Hope to see some pics (but not of the bruises).
Regards
This first picture shows the view of the garden before works began- the garden is 100ft by 18ft, and mainly scrub and brambles, with no real lawn- the grass was mainly wild, and grew on hard clay, so before we could consider flowerbeds or lawn, we had to dig that all up, turn it over and add new topsoil. The garden is South facing, which is a major bonus, and means that we can grow many sun-loving plants once everything is done. The view looks Southwards, and shows the new fencing that enclosed our plot for the first time since we moved in. You can also see some decking, which was rotting and needed removal, as well as the brick out-building, which used to be a toolshed, coal store and outdoor loo, until we converted it into a toolshed, compost-bin store and potting shed.
This next view looks again Southward, and shows the general poor state of the grass before we got to work, along with a few potted plants that we inherited when we moved here.
The work begins! The garden was cleared of all rubbish and debris, and the old decking was ripped up- the good wood was kept, and moved into our loft space to provide floorboards for future expansion upwards. Here, you can see the view looking towards the house, with 7 tons of hardcore being laid out pior to the new patio being built. As well as the hardcore, we also had delivered 15 tons of topsoil, 3 tons of sand, and about 1.5 tons of compost, to finish off the patio and prepare the garden for turfing. (My ribs got better with al the exercise of digging and moving that lot!
The patio was built by a nice chap from my brother-in-law's building firm, and you can see the finished result in the next pic.
Our new patio! The stone cladding is Indian sandstone, which looks absolutely stunning, and has layers and strata running through it in all colours of the rainbow. There's even one stone that has perfectly preserved footprints in it, from whatever animal trod in that sand millions of years ago.
The new view looking at the shed, and showing the patio stones in greater detail, along with some new plants and climbers we added.
This is the new view looking South! 15 tons of topsoil meant we could level the garden properly, and finally lay a decent lawn. We also laid a gravel path past a large flowerbed (Just out of shot to the left) to the picnic area at the bottom of the garden. The flowerbed has a variety of flowers, and all manner of herbs, as well as tomatoes, peppers and other assorted veg. You can see some of that to the left of the picture next to the path, where the bed narrows to continue down the left-hand side.
This last picture shows the flowerbed by the picnic area, which was bordered with logs cut from a couple of trees which we unfortunately had to cut down, as they were close to the house, and the roots would have posed a problem with the foundations if we allowed them to grow. Their beauty lives on, in a sense, by providing a natural border, which also allows shelter for the frogs and toads which always seem to find their way into our garden. Just behind the fence, we also discovered a foxes earth, where an urban fox and his vixen were caring for three fox cubs. We decided to name the picnic area 'Foxes' Corner' in their honour.
It was a major undertaking, and the garden is completely transformed- we're enormously pleased with our efforts, and we hope the garden will give us pleasure for many more years to come!
could you get me a picture of the prints??? i'd love to see them.
Cheers,
P.S. really nice job done-excellent work.!!