Been nearly a couple of weeks since I updated this thread now, and having had two lovely weekends, the garden has progrossed some more.
My girlfriend has been doing lots of drawing and planning for the garden with a view to it looking nice over the summer and maturing into a lovely garden over the next year or two. However at present funds are tight so we've been making the best of what we have and gladly accepting various plants etc which have been offered to us.
Starting at the newly created bed by the back wall. My girlfriend has added a few little ornaments as she likes little hidden away things in gardens, I have no strong feelings either way so am happy for her to do as she pleases...at least she is not adding gnomes anywhere!!!
She has also been thinking about the finished shape of the bed and was experimenting with using bricks as an edging seeing as we have a fair few bricks laying around that we found dumped in the garden when we moved in.
Below shows the roughly positioned bricks to give an idea of the way we intend to edge this bed. The bricks will be flush with the lawn, on a bed of sand and cemented/mortared in place. I will no doubt be asking for tips and advice when it comes to doing this.
Quite a large section of the lefthand fence has low panels with trellis at the top which while it does soften the fence rather, does not give us much privacy from the neighbours, as such we got hold of some virginia creepers cheap at a boot fair over the weekend and have planted them next to the fence so they can climb and grow along it. It should give us some nice foliage to help soften the garden and in the autumn the leaves turn a nice red which will give some nice autumnal colour to the garden.
I am aware that they can go mad so I shall have to make sure we keep it in check so it doesn't completely overwhelm the fence...
The cutout beds for the creepers will be edged nicely when we find something we like that will keep the edge tidy and is also child friendly.
The Blue pot in the pic is a small oak tree which my parents found, self-set, in their garden. We are going to try to grow it in a pot and see what happens.
I spent some time planning and putting in place two micro-irrigation kits I got cheap from Wilkos. They may not be the best kit in the world for such things but each kit was only about £6 and they work so I'm happy.
Irrigation in place in the herb planter. As the herbs grow they will begin to hide the tubing which will look a lot nicer but it does make watering much easier!
The other planter, also with irrigation in place. Have added a couple of extra plants we were given so it's beginning to fill out a bit.
Irrigation in action.
I have a lovely Bay tree at the end of the garden which has been in need of some tlc as it's been yellowing and has some sort of leaf damage on parts of it. After repotting to a bigger pot, I've been watering it with a sequestered iron plant tonic and it does seem to be getting a bit greener. I've also stripped off some of the affected leaves. I'm hoping it'll perk up and be back to full strength in time as it is a lovely tree and have a lovely twisted trunk which was formed by growing it round a section of drain pipe over several years.
Over the weekened I picked up an Olive tree from my local Morrisons for £18, it stands about 5 feet tall and seems to be growing nicely. We've repotted it into a horrid but large pot that we had and have put it near the Bay tree to keep it company. We were really pleased to see a very similar olive tree for sale in a local garden centre for £80!!!
Both trees are shown below on the concrete base that one day will be the location of some decking:
The recent variable weather seems to be suiting the Honeysuckle we have in one of the planters we've put by the outhouse wall and it's growing very nicely. Looking forward to lovely flowers and that lovely scent as the summer rolls on.
The plant in the other planter however seems to be doing virtually nothing...
The very yellow turf we got for a bargainous 50p a roll has also been loving the recent weather and is now beautifully green and lush. In the autumn I intend on spending a lot of time getting the lawn a bit more level as it's all over the place at the moment but at least it is growing fairly nicely and is getting much greener!
My parents and I are going to go halves on a scarifier/lawn raker so as both our lawns need some tlc and having a tool like this between us seems like the best option. At present I'm getting the lawn growing nicely and getting it as thick and good as I can, then in a month or so I shall put down some 4 in 1 weed and moss killer to kill the huge amounts of moss and weeds which I shall then rake out with the raker...
Then come the autumn it'll be scarifying and levelling etc.
Turf coming on nicely
Having lived in a flat for 6 years with no garden, we decided that as Sunday was a nice day we'd put together the cheapo bbq my parents got for me some years ago, put out the garden table and chairs and enjoy the sunshine with a nice bbq. We had a friend of ours over who brought her little boy and the two of them had great fun running around. It was so lovely to finally have the garden we've always dreamt about having and being able to enjoy it together.
Bbq lit and table ready to enjoy the sun.
There is still a very long way to go to make this the garden we really want but we feel we've made a decent start and it definitely looks better than it did.
I'd really like to get the decking I want done soon but it's going to be pretty expensive...especially if I go for composite rather than softwood, which I am considering for it's non-slip and low/zero maintenance properties...
But as everyone keeps saying, we're in no rush!!!
