Absenteeism?

So when I started this blog I anticipated there would more posts, a rapid fire deployment of startlingly wonderful information all about my very own piece of land… Well as I mentioned before, life gets in the way!

The garden is much the same this year although the raised beds have been rebuilt albeit that one is more given over to strawberries now. The mixed hedging put in a couple of years ago has established itself and really could do with a good hack this winter but that may be someone else’s choice as we’re planning a move…

The family has grown again with the addition of little Oscar and frankly we need a bit more running around room! I’d quite like an office again as every time it moves a little person seems to appear and take it as their room. The cheek of some people.

As a consequence the garden has had little done to it this year but I have started to take cuttings or divisions of plants I want to take with us on the move. That said it’s a slow market so we may be in that annoying situation where we’re just waiting to find a buyer for a while. Fingers crossed.

Last October I planted some garlic in bagged topsoil. It was out in the veg patch but not mixed in. Big mistake. New topsoil, at least in this instance, goes like rock! The garlic bulbs didn’t grow and ended up a little disappointing.

It is the least of concerns with the garden to be honest as I’m sure you’ve also noticed a distinct lack of rain this year. Blisteringly hot weather and only one short rain spell in the last few months has destroyed the grass and the borders are looking tatty to say the least. Not one to liberally water the plants anyway but this year the watering cans have really taking a bashing.

Well, fingers crossed we sell up soon and move into a new Surrey garden… Adventure awaits!

 

Patio refresh

Who has a tired looking patio made from pink and buff 60×60 concrete slabs? Except now they look grey and drab and entirely uninviting don’t they? Well me too – so I decided in 2016 to get rid and have somewhere that I wanted to spend some time and show off to people.

The original space was very stingy, a sort of afterthought of a patio. It was too small to do much with or on and there was a small flower bed blocking any flow so it wasn’t a heart-rending decision to be rid of it all! In fact the wort bit was man handling all the concrete slabs, they weigh a stupid amount.

Naturally I spent quite a while with pencil and paper trying out different layouts but in the end it came down to how much space was I allowed to take out of the lawn? The Committee likes the lawn and hates to see me chop away at it but an accord was made and we had the boundary of the new patio space. At first glance it looks big but that’s just because the previous one was so tiny and mean. If you’re having a new patio – go bigger than you think you need. I also decided it would be nice to have a low boundary wall to demark house from garden and something to sit on too.

Next big headache – what stone?! Such choice – I went to a few stone specialists (avoid the likes of Homebase or B&Q) and had a few ideas so had the builder drop some samples off. Oh, did I not mention? Yes I might have had some help in all this…

Decision made (Green Indian sandstone), I left the slab layout to the professional using three different sizes. And we all got busy – remove the old crud, dig the footings for the wall and bring in tonnes of hardcore. It always looks bad at first in building projects so it’s best not to look; that said I am very, very happy with the result and a year on it just looks better and better.

Project: Lose a tree, Gain a border

lumberjack in knaphill

This was going to be a straight tree removal but as it turns out, there’s a great opportunity to create a new space to mellow out in…