Sunday 4 November 2012

Hazel Fencing

Making Our Garden Spectacular

After spending hours painting our fence green, we have decided to put up some hazel screening.

This is how it looked before:

plain fence

This is our fence before. As you can see, it is a rather ordinary and boring looking fence.

So! We painted it!

green fence

We bought Sherwood Green wood treatment from Wickes and used some cheap brushes from Aldi. We didn’t need to use posh brushes as the treatment covered the wood fairly easily.

But we still covered it all in hazel.

Friday 2 November 2012

Going Green

It’s Time to Paint the Fence

With winter drawing in, we thought it might be a good idea to put some treatment on the fence.

This is the before picture:

plain fence

We went to Wickes to buy the treatment, we bought Sherwood Green wood treatment in the smaller sized tub. It turns out that was just enough!

We used cheap brushes from Aldi but the treatment covered the wood well enough even using the cheap brushes.

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This is a picture of my dad helping us to paint. I was obviously helping too, I just stopped to take the very important photos! But the fence did look fairly lovely in the end!

As you can see…

green fence

I’m really pleased with the result. I think it looks really natural and effective in our garden. What do you think?

We are planning to cover it all in hazel anyway.

Thursday 1 November 2012

Digging!!

Creating Plant Beds!

Garden Design (2)Following our plan, Dad and Warren have been digging around the garden.

As I’ve said in an earlier post, we wanted a bit of an unusual shape to the garden. It’s all so easy to have straight boarders but they just don’t add character to these straight new build gardens.

The idea from the plan was to create a wavy journey from the house to the bottom of the garden (among the birds and the bees). As guests progress down the garden, they will pass colours and scents all the year round!

Well, that’s the plan.

Wednesday 31 October 2012

Rake That Lawn

The Tale of the Ropey Lawn

Our lawn was looking a little rough. Dad had been working hard in the garden which meant our poor lawn had been trampled on, smothered in soil and generally not very green.

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It doesn’t look so bad in this photo but it was a bit of a squashed lawn. Dad’s solution was to rake the lawn. I think it looks really good now.

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I know the raked side looks browner as all the dead grass has been pulled up, but it also looks a lot healthier and thicker.

Here is a pic of the not raked grass:

raked grass

It does look green but to me it looks very thin. Perhaps the photograph doesn’t illustrate it well enough.

Here is a photo of the raked grass:

not raked grass

It does look a lot more brown but it is autumn at the moment. I think that it does look a lot better.

 

We have started to use the grass as a sort of compost for the other plants around the garden.

compost

So hopefully our clematis will grow with lots of beautiful flowers.

That is the most interesting thing that has happened to our garden so far. Next up: Hazel screening!

Tuesday 30 October 2012

A Pile of Rocks

Sieving!

We have been sieving out the soil. Being a new build, a lot of the rubble from the construction site is buried in the soil. This does not make for good soil. It can also make the soil very alkaline.

So, we have a garden sieve and have been sieving the soil.

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This is the result! A lot of the soil that was here before has been moved to else where in the garden, and under here is a deep trench of stones, rocks and other debris from the garden.

This is the first step towards making out garden lovely and perfect.

Sunday 28 October 2012

The Plan

This are Our Ideas

Before starting a garden, a plan is required. You might simply use a sketch or some of those amazing online garden design websites, but you will need a plan.

We chose to sketch our plan out and began by measuring the garden.

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Using accurate measurements we were able to plan out what we wanted for our garden.

Friday 26 October 2012

The Garden Event

Bad Weather Fail

The whole purpose of our garden, for us, is for somewhere to entertain and have fun with our friends and family.

To that purpose, we bought a gazebo.

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The only problem was the weather!

Wednesday 24 October 2012

We Have Lawn!

Going Green

We were a bit disappointed to see our lovely new house with only a patch of mud outside! Our house was beautiful but the garden was mud!

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And, as you can see, a huge plate right in the middle of it! That was the last thing we wanted! However, the fence was built…

We needed lawn, and quick!

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Hello and Welcome!

I think it is time to start blogging! 

We recently moved into a new house and our garden was a complete blank canvas. All we had was lawn to start with. I have been photographing the progress of the garden so that you can see where we are and how we're doing. 

I'm going to start this blog as if we've just moved in, then catch up with the progress we have made. Once it's all up to date, I'll post only when we have done something spectacular or when there is something interesting to show you. 

Or if someone has a question! 

My dad is doing our garden for us, as one of the top gardeners in the country, but my husband and I are helping! My dad's blog is Tony the Gardener if you'd like to check it out. 

So, this is how our garden started out... 


Our Garden April 2012

Keep checking back for updates on how it looks now!