Grasses and gravel

 

Over May half term, we did a lot of work to our front garden and I thought you might like to see it.  

This is what it looked like in April, with a photo taken from our balcony looking down on the front garden. It's roughly 7 metres wide by 6 metres deep.

It was a square of lawn, which never really thrived because it was 90% weeds and moss. There was a strip of border under the living room window containing some grasses. At the front, by the pavement, were are selection of small trees: a holly and a few firs. These used to look nice until we had to hack them back as they were overhanging the pavement. After that, you could just see the branches on the inside. The front of our house faces south-west so gets very warm and baked dry during the summer. It was time to say goodbye to the sad square of lawn and fill the space with plants that would thrive in this hot, dry area. I was aiming for height and texture in the long run, lots of movement in the wind and interesting shapes.

Over the Easter holidays, and with a lot of help from family, we pulled up all the trees. This was hard work as we removed the tree stumps too. We chopped them up and my Dad and I made about ten trips to the tip, filling both our car boots over and over again.

Then we left it for six weeks while we figured out what to do and ordered all the things we would need. I know nothing about landscaping a garden so this was very much make it up as you go along.  

In May half term, we picked it up again. My parents and I worked together some days, and John when he was not working. Angus was out there every day helping. We moved all the existing grasses from the border into temporary homes in pots and bags along the side path.

We bought a rotavator. We intended to hire one but it was cheaper to buy one from B&Q, so we did. It will come in handy when we sort out our back garden at some point as Bandit has really churned up our lawn.

Rotavating was hard work and very, very dusty. It was a hot week (the first of many) at the end of May and the dust stuck to the sun cream on my legs. It was quite disgusting.

We went over and over it, using a garden sieve to remove stones and large chunks of turf.

Then we were ready to plot out a path.

We decided on a gravel path, partly for access from the drive to the bins and side path, partly to break up the space.

We dug out a channel and lined each side with metal border trim. This is to provide a barrier between the shingle and borders.

We filled the path channel with sub base. John used a piece of wood 1 metre wide to make sure we kept the width consistent throughout.

On top of the sub base we put down membrane, then pea shingle on top. 

Plants were bought. We chose a range of grasses, lavender, rosemary, an olive tree, heuchera, salvia blue spires and seneca sunshine.

I put the plants roughly in the position, allowing for space for them to grow. I tried to plant taller grasses by the pavement and the living room windows, and lavender near the front step so we can smell it. I also bought these circular paving stones to allow for weeding when the plants are bigger.

Then was the hard work of digging lots of deep holes, filling with compost and planting everything, including the grasses we had dug up from the existing border.  You can see in the photo below that we hadn't yet trimmed the edge of the membrane on the path.

Next was bark chippings to suppress weeds. I know these will rot away in time but hopefully the plants will have grown more by then.

And this is what it looked like when we finished. We were lucky to have some days of rain in early June which helped water everything in before the next heat wave started. Six weeks later, it hasn't changed that much. Nothing has died. It hasn't grown much either but I'm guessing that's the lack of rain. I've added some verbena bonariensis since.

And here's the before picture again,

Overall we spent about £600 on materials and equipment, and £300 on plants. It suits the 1960s style of our house and hopefully will cope with the heat and sun. Now we just need everything to grow tall and fill the space. 

A New Shed

 

After four months, and a lot of digging, shoveling and painting, we have a new shed in place in the back garden and I love it.

You may remember that, back in the Easter holidays, we cleared this area in the corner of the back garden. It had previously housed the trampoline, well hidden from the house by the two huge New Zealand flax plants.

Before we did anything else, John and my dad removed the huge tree stump.

Then we removed the two New Zealand flax plants which had grown to about ten feet tall and just as wide.

Next, John and I painted the fences in the corner to protect the wood.

Once we knew exactly how big the cleared corner area was, we ordered a shed - 10 feet wide by 6 feet deep. It took about eight weeks to come, during which time we prepared the ground by leveling the earth and laying paving slabs and sand. You can just see it under the wooden shed base.

The shed was delivered on one roasting hot, humid day in June and John and I carried it all from a pallet on the front drive to a the back garden, panel by panel, when I got home from work. It was hot. But of course, being Britain, torrential rain was forecast before we were going to be able to assemble it so we had to wrap in in plastic sheeting until then.

John and my dad assembled the shed one Friday and I came home from work to this beauty. We celebrated with fish and chips.

Lovely though the shed is, the plan was always to paint it. Black, with white trim.

John and I did this slowly over a few days off and weekends during June and July.

I wanted the windows to have a little more definition, so John cut some pieces of baton to size, painted them and nailed them to the shed.

You'll notice that we also added window boxes. Not strictly necessary for a shed, but since this is clearly visible from the house I thought it would be nice to have something pretty to look out on.

My clever dad made us these window boxes with drainage holes.

The shed wall panels are not strong enough to take the weight of window boxes, so Dad added batons inside so that there would be something to screw into.

The weight is also supported by two sturdy black brackets which sit under the window box.

Then we lined them with plastic and potted them with pink geraniums.

The final stage was to add some pebbles to the area around the shed. This is partly because the area in front of the shed door was already getting really worn and muddy with foot traffic, and also because the area to the right of the shed, under the palm trees, gets very little light and the grass doesn't grow there well. Pebbles seemed easiest.

Borrowing my dad's pick axe, we dug a channel in front of the shed and filled it with old bricks. This was to create a little wall, to stop the pebbles constantly rolling onto the lawn. We also chose quite big pebbles for the same reason.

Then, on Thursday, a lorry dropped off a large bag containing 850 kg of pebbles. John and I used the wheelbarrow to transport them down the side path and dumped them on top of some membrane which we'd put down to prevent weeds.

The contrast of white pebbles and black shed is everything I hoped it would be, and a massive improvement on the area before.

As for the old shed, which was really on its last legs in a different corner of the garden.....

...we emptied it out....

...then pulled it to pieces. 

Angus was very excited about helping with this part.

Once the shed was down (most of it will be fire wood) I dug over the earth underneath as much as I could given that it was boiling hot and the ground was bone dry, and attempted to level it out a bit. My main concern was getting this camellia into the ground as soon as possible - it had previously been in a large pot on our balcony but had outgrown the pot so needed most space to spread roots. I think it will be much happier here and already looks healthier. I am undecided about the rest of the border. I have a fig tree that is bursting out of its pot, so might plant that to the left of the camellia, and a bay tree which is currently in a pot but might do better in the ground. Anything to hide the fences, although our neighbours did tell us that they have planned to replace them this autumn.

So that's what has been going on in our garden lately. And now I need a holiday.