GARDEN SEATING

 

When we had the flower garden area paved , I was happy to keep my two old covered benches , I planned on just giving them a new coat of stain. However Paul wanted a change along with one of our daughters saying the same ! 

So I went looking to see what was out there in the covered bench arena . 

and there were lots of beautiful ones to chose from.

Beautiful colours

I was loving this one, until I saw the price for one was over £3000 ! 

There are lots out there !

But I have to say that this was my favourite and also one of the most expensive ! Naturally ! Around the £3500 mark for one , I would need two !!

So I needed to find something much cheaper and give it a little tweak.

This one, without the side planters, looked quite similar to the shape of the one I liked.

So I decided on this one for the shape.

But needed to add a few tweaks to give it a lift.

So first up was adding a finial to the top of the roof. 

The finial in place

Next we decided to add some stained glass vintage fan lights that we'd bought cheaply. We had four just the right number but as they were not as deep as we needed , Paul added some wood to fill the gap between the window and the arm of the bench.

The wood around the glass was painted black along with the wooden strip used to fill the gap.

The finished uplift. We considered painting the whole bench but decided to wait and see. 

So bought in the sales, a finial and two stained glass second hand fan lights, and a pair of unique covered garden benches for a fraction of the cost of buying a fancy new pair.

GETTING THOSE SMALL JOBS DONE

 

In the pond garden each side of the Lych Gate are two mystical creatures. On the left he sits nice and neatly and in the summer is surrounded by Virginia Creeper , on the right Bucca boo a Cornish Spirit but the side of the trellis nearest the LychGate is leaning forward into the pond garden and although he is surrounded by Honeysuckle, which does get out of hand, it looks very untidy.

So finally today, Paul replaced a small three foot pot with a proper six foot one, which enabled him to straighten up the trellis and tie it back also to the lychGate 

Here you can see the new post with the trellis fixed back and the metal plates fixing the post to the lych gate for added support.

From the front. We are trying to decide if we should remove the Honeysuckle before the open day at the end of June or wait until autumn. The what do we put in it's place? There is an American Pillar rose just off to the right, that we cut back hard intending to remove but it's still going strong, so maybe we could train that over to this corner to replace the honeysuckle, decisions decisions !

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Also in the top of the Lych Gate we had placed an old piece of stained glass that looked like an Owl. But I realised that on this side of the gate it would never get any light hitting it. So while Paul was sorting out the post, I also asked him to swap the stained glass panel from this side to the other side.

So it was removed from this side of the lych gate and the little fake owl put in it's place

and placed the other end and already you can see the improvement with the light showing up the glass.

Will look even better on a sunny day.

More compost has been added to the two trough's along with another plant, a pink to help fill the space.

the second one.

The Hosta's are starting to show.

Cherry tree flowering along with the Wisteria on the studio.

Malice in flower

The Magnolia's are still in flower.

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The pale yellow Magnolia , Canary bird, is flowering too.

Some nice flowers on it this year. 

This bed is looking colourful with the trees flowering , even next doors Lilac is flowering to add to the look.

So still more little jobs to do over the coming months , along with some tidying ready for the open day. 

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