Vegetable Garden Transformation

Finally dug over today and twelve large barrows of mushroom compost mixed in. A big, satisfying transformation. It is so dry though. Lots of watering needed if anything is to grow.

Wisteria

Glorious.  Hacked back as soon as we got home. Now this :)

Herbaceous border progress

Tamsin has been chipping away at this.  We spent £60 on plants and they are slowly going in. Then we will add the compost and try not to bury them.

Terrace lawn progress

Running out of soil now, having mined my one store out.  I've been stealing from the borders but this is not a long term solution.

Terrace and lawn

I now need to bring the lawn up to the terrace.  Initially the plan was to turn the existing turf over and back fill from the various soil quarries around the garden. But. The soil under the tree is terrible. It is mostly flint and so dry that I'm amazed any grass grows.

So, the new plan is dig out the whole area, sieve out the flint and put the soil back with some of the huge pile of mushroom compost covering the drive.  Another stupid and big job, but my muscles are getting used to it.

Terrace complete

Thanks to dad's angle grinder, careful planning and a measure twice cut once attitude the new terrace is complete. Really pleased it is done. Let the wobbly pavier spotting begin.

Terrace

Brutal day.  Making progress but soon out of sand. :(

Terrace

Starting the terrace I know this might get ugly. My first problem is that the cement from the original laying is sticking to some of the stones. My first method for removing it was not a great success.

Turfing in

Estimated four rolls, ordered six and would have needed seven if I had not done that work last night.

Plants for the new herbaceuos border

A list of plants we think we have for the new border

Anemone × hybrida 'Honorine Jobert' AGM 1.0-1.5m

Rudbeckia fulgida var. deamii AGM 0.5-1.0m

Helenium 'Moerheim Beauty' AGM 0.5-1.0m

Verbena bonariensis AGM up to 2.5m but thin

Armeria pseudarmeria 'Ballerina Red' 0.2m

Alchemilla mollis AGM low

Hemerocallis daylily
Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens' (black lily)
Sedum telephium (ice plant)
Geranium phaeum
Astrantia major


Ideas
Lychnis coronaria alba white flowers, grey stems

Ideas for by the rocking bench

Adiantum pedatum L. AGM  (Maidenhair fern)

Further on with the middle border

Ready for turfing and with more grass from the enlarged border.

I have worked out top dressing is about £200 for the whole garden. May have to bite the bullet. 

As usual, loads to do.

Terrace levelling.

This is a massive job, but I hate the step in the middle and the way the garden drops off. I should never have let the builders do this.

Vegetable garden renewal

Before and after. There has always been an annoying slope, and the border remodeling will create a lot of spare soil so it seemed sensible to solve the two problems by levelling the vegetable garden. I had wood left over from making the raised beds and the new shovel made digging holes for the posts much easier.

Another job done. This allows the rejigging of the middle border to proceed.

I also finished staining the monkey bars today. They will be in use tomorrow!

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Monkey bars

In NZ the girls lived on climbing frames with Monkey Bars. In a weak moment I promised to add Monkey Bars to the climbing frame in Erica's garden. Here is the result (staining still needed).

I'm pretty happy with it, though doing it by buying a ladder was not cheap in money (about four times the cost of the wood alone), it *was* cheap in time, strength and quality of finish.

Digging a 0.8m hole in the top garden was surprisingly easy with the new longer thinner shovel (grouching shovel, trenching shovel?) I added to my collection of man tools.

30 seconds of scarifying

Aaargh, and loads of broad leaf weeds too.

Know the enemy

Clear sign of the neglect of the garden. I've never had a daisy his far advanced before!

Erica's new bed

Slow start to the day, but worked hard once we got going. Decision made about our old rose penelope (dug out but lives on in her offspring and a slit trench cutting), but decision deferred on the mulberry tree.  We need to do some more research there.



Erica watched with interest throughout. We were joined by a very vocal robin at one stage.

We also managed to trim our little hedge and shred everything using the lovely Atco quiet shredder. I still enjoy putting big stuff through it. It must be a man thing.

penelope had to go, but she has a daughter plant that has sprung up from her old root so that went next to the piece in the slit trench.  It will be interesting to see which bit survives the best.  We planted her in the spot where the children run down the garden and leap off the wall.  She may prevent that but may get destroyed.  We'll see.


The first refugees (Sedum telephium) from the slowly disappearing island border.




The pukekos picking over where penelope used to live.