Friday, 24 June 2016

A LOOK ROUND THE GARDEN


The jasmine is starting to cover the gate into the flower garden but I won't let Paul cut it back until it's flowered.


You can see the house garden through the gate.


The flower garden is looking full of colour.


 flower garden side one


side two


side three


side four


The centre of the flower garden.


The right hand side of Flower garden


The left hand side of flower garden.


Looking through the side of the covered bench.


the other side of same bench.


The cloisters


At the end of the Cloisters , the ferns been replaced by a Hosta to show up more.


a closer look.


View from the bench in the cloisters. ahead.


to the left.


to the right

 x


 The stone trough by the studio.


Seen from above


The house garden


The Alpine bed finally planted up.


The side bed awaiting a small rock for the centre then the last two plants can go in.




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Sunday, 19 June 2016

GARDEN WORK PART THREE

The Alpine bed.


We finished last Sunday needing more earth to fill the last part of the new Alpine bed and this photo above is where we will be getting that extra earth from.


I was hoping to keep the Rambling rose , Dorothy Perkins that is covering the trellis wall but unfortunately it had to go, which is a shame as it was about to flower but sometimes you just cannot wait for these things to happen.

So on Saturday Paul cleared this area so he could dig the trench that's needed here for another garden feature, so we could use the earth to fill the Alpine bed.






So the area was cleared and the earth taken.

Then today Sunday we made a trip to the garden centre to get some more grit to dress the beds with and also some John Innes no 3 to top dress them.


The last bed being filled.


Here the big stones been set in and the grit added to dress the top.

 x


Then it was coming up to lunch time and all was finished.. or was it?....


The new larger bed was looking good but what about this small narrow bed on the left? we decided that it needed refreshing and maybe widening! May have helped to have made that decision sooner, so we went in for lunch.


After Lunch we removed the front wall of the narrow bed, Paul dug it over , I rebuilt wall further out and then we refilled it with earth, John Innes no3 and grit.


In the morning I'd also allowed Paul to cut a couple of the lower branches off the big red robin to allow more light to reach the Alpine beds.


The lower bed and the side bed are waiting for some new Alpines. We went on the internet and found a specialist Alpine nursery and ordered some plants.


The main bed.


The new side bed.


from the side.


From the patio.


so now just waiting for the new alpine plants.



This is what it was like last Saturday and


 and now.




last weekend


and now. A definite improvement I think.



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Sunday, 12 June 2016

GARDEN WORK PART TWO

How does that song go.. " What a difference a day makes.. twenty four little hours... "
And so it was here RAIN stopped play all morning until we decided to go down the local landscape centre and garden centre just to LOOK at the stones available..



By the time we returned the rain had stopped so it was back outside to carry on building the wall and filling it with earth etc.


We decided to add another row along the back to make it higher and just had enough pieces of broken paving to do so.


Last year we piles all the pieces of paving, earth, pots and other garden items here where the compost heap used to be.


Underneath this pile of plastic covering that white bag at the bottom contains a load of compost with some earth from when we tidied the garden for the open day. So just what we need to fill the new wider Alpine/Rockery bed.


A couple of hours later all the earth/compost/rubble and stones we had available is now in the bed!


Now we need to make the make the different levels but it's started raining again and it's time for lunch, so will we manage to get a little more done? or will we have to wait until next weekend?

Well after lunch we went to the car and....



Look what we 'found' some great big pieces of stone just right for someone making a rockery!! Okay Okay I know we said we'd do it for next to nothing but we don't actually have any great big lumps of stone laying round the garden, so we decided that we would buy a couple of stones so we could get an idea of how it all would look....


Then we saw that we'd only need around another six pieces of stone so went back and bought some more!

Then we worked away at putting the stones in place and filling the higher places with earth from the lowest place, so we are now almost finished apart from we now need more earth to fill the front bed of the Rockery.


We have filled and planed up the higher beds but still need some Alpine/Rockery grit to cover the earth.


Not bad , even if I do say so myself!


Just had enough time to take these photo's before the sound of thunder rumbling in the distance !But somethings missing?





The two mini gargoyles who have sat and watched the goings on from the old wall for about eight or nine years!



Even Milo came to investigate what was going on.


The edge of the new Alpine/Rockery wall seen from the patio..

Well we finished just as the heavens opened and it poured with rain , along with rumbles of thunder and the odd flash of lightening. I realised I'd not taken any close up photo's , so when the rain finally stopped although the thunder was still rolling around, I popped out and took the following photo's and although it was only 6.15pm it was quite dark so the flash went off.



You can see the back beds planted up and a couple with some Alpine grit covering them.


The large stone at the front will be set onto the earth once this front bed been filled with earth and grit.


 another view, I placed a few pots of Alpines along the back wall.


Where it meets the original lower Alpine bed.



So not quite finished, more earth needed , which we'll have to get by digging a trench we need in another part of the garden for a wall base, so seems the most sensible way to acquire it.Plus it means we may finally get round to laying the foundation for the wall! Then once the earths in, buy a few more Alpines and some more Alpine grit and we've finished!
Just have to work the week first!



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