Much of the front garden is completed.
There are still some great projects for later this year but now the main focus is on the back. This is probably a four years project now but I really hope to do most of it in less than three.
Some work is also linked to other jobs elsewhere and the current main project is a long strip of land that runs parallel to the rear of the house. This strip will take plants of a bed alongside the driveway which is to be removed so it is really a couple of tasks in tandem.
The land is heavy sticky clay which raised two challenges.
The rear garden needs to be a dry as possible; try that on heavy clay! I might not be able to creat a true scree but hopefully sufficiently so that we can put plants there that need very little watering – it is full southern sunlight which will help.
So, stage one, double dig the bed and work in the best part of a tonne of pea grit.
Stage two, work in four bags of compost and much lighter soil from other parts of the garden. Stage three dig over again. Stage four stop and refresh with a pint.
You will see from the pic that I have a pile of stone that will be used to dress the bed.
The problem with reviewing pics like this is that I see other work – like the scrappy lawn of rough meadow grass. I don’t need a pristine lawn, as is normal in town, do but it would be nice to have a better surface than that. Oh well, that’s year 5!!
Now I have to dig out the plants from the driveway bed and, in doing that, also remove the bed rather than leave it looking like a tip.
It’s the bed on the right as you look down the drive; you can see the start in the second picture. The driveway slopes and this is the highest point that needs the least amount of digging. What you see here is three spades deep and the lower portion is very thick sticky clay.
The process is, firstly, carefully remove vegetation, saving what is worth keeping, and relocate it. Then, dig out into a wheel barrow, and move round to the other side of that hedge and across the garden. There is about eight days work for this bed so I should get back to something resembling fitness.
I will update this blog as it progresses …