Ah well ...

The garden chaos has turned into mudbath chaos!

Following a tropical few weeks (honest - no clouds, slight breeze and lots of sun!), our house and garden seems to have been transported to a different place ... rainforest maybe? Monsoon perhaps?

The grass is trying to re-grow from 3ft under! The new plants are loving it but the weather has severely dampened progress.

On the good side, the beans and peas are going well, charging up their poles, and all but 4 of the plants are looking good for getting out of their pots and into the ground. The other 4 have to wait for the spa to be moved before they go in, but they are looking alive still!

Here's some pics of the plants in - the olive and cypress (not Cyprus ha ha - found that out!) trees have taken a wicked beating from the wind this week but still standing and looking good. Possibly very naff water feature also installed - will have to wait and see if is totally naff or not! Also of the start of the base for the spa going down. This has turned out to be one hell of a job as the ground near to the house is solid clay - hmm could that be why the garden was left sloping? Lazy developers didn't want to dig the clay! Not so with Paul - he's been out there giving hell to the stuff and the base is nearly finished (so is Paul). We have used the paving we have replaced with the green/terracotta paving to make the base - seeeee no waste (or expensive skips/removals)!

Very much hoping for friendly weather this weekend so we can get Mr. Sparky in to wire up the spa and lights!

Some more pics to upload shortly....

In the meantime - one of the benefits of being a slim as Paul is - there is no way I'd get down that gap! Neither would many people I'm sure! Not sure where his feet are though!

Oooh the new lights just arrived - look good, hope we can find someone to wire them up OK!

More garden chaos! The patios arrived in a crate and some new plants too! Not so much progress this weekend as we were both suffering from extreme tiredness - no idea why!

Managed to get some small plants into the front garden though - poppies and cornflowers to go with the 'Windmill' theme.

As you will see the patios start to make sense of my wacky fence painting. Anyway, more garden chaos as it happens!

The Dirt

Eventually a plan formed in my head for dealing with all the rubble and earth we had dug out - raised beds. Back on the phone to Jewson for more supplies including Railway Sleepers. Paul gets to work putting the sleepers together from my very dodgy drawing and I get on painting the fences. 1st the spray gun will not work and I have to get the manual out - I now consider myself to be an expert spray-gun mechanic! I then give myself something like a spray-on tan with the mist from the spray gun catching the breeze. Much swearing from Pauls corner of the garden, but things are looking good.

By the end of the day, I have showered off my orange spray-tan, Paul is feeling pleased with his railway sleeper work, Aengus is still wondering what is going on and why all his toys are in the back garden and Harry is, yet again, filthy!

In the meantime ... The Front Garden

The front garden needed some seeing to, so I went out there late one afternoon and hacked it to pieces! We dug out some out of control plants, clipped the bushes and hacked back the buddleia with the intention of digging that out too. Then I read that buddleia likes being hacked back hard, so decided to keep it and indeed, it is now looking quite nice and bushy.



Paul then dug both front patches over after we had killed off all the grass and weeds. We then covered it with landscaping fabric and poured over the 15 bags of cotswold chippings I had calculated we would need to cover it. Hmm - bit of a mis calculation there, we ended up needing another 30 bags to get it all covered.



I wanted to go with a Windmill theme without being naff and had managed to pick up some repro staddle stones at a local auction. I had also been hunting around for some millstones but they were stupid expensive for the real thing so was quite happy when I managed to get a repro one a lot cheaper. I am now in the process of paining the railings - what a brain numbing job that is but it will be worth it as what I have covered so far is looking great.

Shedded!

Hurrah! One shed built by Messrs Blundy & Son! So pleased that pile of wood has now turned into a shed! I grabbed the paint and turned it a lovely shade of green and even if I say so myself, it looks great (for a shed that is).

The digger has gone back and the garden is flatter than it was! Some hand digging to do though.

Trouble is - what the hell are we going to do with all the dirt we;ve dug up and piled into the corner of the garden? Also, seems the builders used our garden as a landfill site before turfing over. We have dug up brick ties, scaffold brackets, prop stands, plastic strapping, bits of UPVC windows etc., along with lots of stones, chunks of cement and as the land used to be commercial nurseries, a lot of glass from broken greenhouses.

I go off to figure out what to do with all the dirt and Paul starts sifting it. Aengus sits in his buggy wondering what is going on and Harry gets the dirtiest he has even been by indulging in back garden dust baths!