Let’s get stuck into the garden makeover!

Garden transformation Part 1 – 2013 the first few months

We moved to our new garden in August 2013.
Chop, chop and yet more chopping. As it was summer we were outside very early every morning. It was hard to know where to start at times on our garden makeover, as there was so much to chop back and take out. We would fill the back of the pick-up until it was nearly toppling over, strap it down then put a second load on top, this did make it a bit slower at the recycling centre, but it was much more efficient. It was truly incredible how much we took out of the garden, but despite the muscle aches, we were in our absolute element, so pleased with our new garden.

By September we were ready to tackle some extremely overgrown conifers, they were nearly 20ft high and almost as wide. We were told they had been double this at one point and the trunks and roots showed it!

The root of the largest conifer proved incredibly tricky to get out of the ground, we had to resort to a tractor jack. I’ve suffered with a bad back all of my adult life, but this conifer root caused my husband’s first and hopefully last back spasm.

As we cut the trees down, we were delighted to find the end of a rather lovely dressed sandstone wall hidden behind. A large house had once stood here and our houses had been built in the grounds.

Getting to the walnut

The old house was the reason that we have such lovely mature trees all around us, including the magnificent walnut tree we could see. When we first moved in a neighbour told us that it was in our garden, but it was really hard to believe as the area was so overgrown. Initially we couldn’t even get down to it.

The walnut lost in the overgrown holly hedge

Silhouette of the walnut with a rather nice sky

It was mid-September when my husband finally hacked his way down to the walnut tree.

The end of the garden had been used as a compost area for a number of years and as a result the ground was raised by 2-3 feet, with various shrubs including holly growing everywhere.

The soil here is extremely good, but unfortunately has rather a lot of stone (understatement) and needs to be riddled. We made our own riddle which later got ungraded with a frame to hold it at a 45 degree angle – it’s still in use today and you will be seeing it again!

Making a start on the raised vegetable beds

Meanwhile I was busying myself building the first two raised vegetable beds. We needed to start growing some food!

The first of many bricks laid in the garden

As we went into October we’d finished the two raised beds, so we made a start digging the first section of the shady wall foundations (coming up in a few of weeks), this is a much shorter wall on the right hand side of the garden. We got the foundations concreted and as I set too bricklaying, my husband kept himself busy widening the driveway. We couldn’t have him twiddling his thumbs.

Tackling the holly hedge

November came and my husband made a start on the extremely overgrown, 80ft long holly hedge. Luckily it only needs to be cut once a year in the winter, which is fortunate as its a rather prickly job!

I’d now moved on to building a raised bed to house bamboo plants, in the site where the huge conifers had been. Whilst my husband swapped to the left hand side of the garden, to carry on chopping conifers where the 160ft long ‘great wall’ would eventually go.

Christmas, finally time for a little rest!

December put pay to the building work and we both carried on chopping back the holly hedge. Finally stopping and having a well-earned Christmas break. We even found the time, to get a small tree.