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The Majestic Walnut Tree
Garden transformation Part 8 – Freeing the walnut As you’ve probably realised by now, I love our walnut tree! In fairness I love all mature native British trees, but this is the first one I’ve had in my garden. It goes back to my childhood and lovely walks with my dad. It’s when he taught me all the ways of the countryside. Including, always walk towards the traffic on narrow lanes, that way you’ll see the car before it hits you lol. NEVER shelter under a tree when it’s lightening! Always shut gates behind you. Keep your dog on a lead when there’s livestock around. It all seems so obvious, but…
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Creating a walled garden from scratch – The Shady Wall
Garden transformation Part 5 – The north facing wall This is a 30ft long border on the right hand side of the garden, near to the house. It had an existing old fence that the foliage had entwined itself through. As I mentioned previously in Lets get stuck into the garden makeover, we took down and dug out some very large conifers from this area. Hidden behind them we found a small section of lovely old sandstone wall. We also discovered that the old crazy paving patio in the corner was substantially larger than we’d been able to see. We weren’t really surprised that this had been a seating area.…
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Lady bricklayer ?
Garden transformation Part 4 – How I started brick laying When we moved to our first house it had an ancient wall that was leaning at a very precarious angle. It had to come down before it fell down! My husband and I had both been brought up by very practical parents, prepared to get stuck in and have a go. I had been a big Lego fan as a child and really fancied having a go at brick laying. That Christmas my husband bought me a trowel and spirit level, together with a book – no internet then – and we got stuck in. We knocked the old wall…
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Building the raised vegetable beds
Garden transformation Part 3 – 2013-2014 In September 2013 a month after moving in, I started my garden plan. We’d already decided to build a 160ft long south facing wall (the Great Wall), which was going to set the tone for a walled kitchen garden. The centre piece was to be six brick built raised vegetable beds. I’ve never really understood why people put their veg patch as far away from the house as possible. I suppose the idea goes back to the days when you had staff to grow your vegetables and retrieve them for you. But back here in the 21st century! When you get home at night,…
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New garden, new cat!
Garden Transformation Part 2 – Story of an orphaned cat When we came to view the property, eight years ago. We knew the minute we saw the garden, that this was the one for us! A blank canvas, big enough for what we had planned. With a long south facing boundary, that I could already imagine fruit growing along. Whilst we were exploring the garden, we saw a cat fast asleep in one of the borders. As it was the next door neighbour showing us around, so we asked who the cat belonged to. The neighbour told us, that sadly the occupant of the house had died, leaving her cat…
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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…
