A disappointed year

You would think the events of 2020 would have improved my chances of getting the garden sorted once and for all. Somehow, though, working from home five days a week kind of brewed a reluctance to tackle the garden, for some reason. I do, however, plan to make a better job of it come 2021. One obstacle, though, is my wife's insistence that we landscape the back garden area to give more lawn space for our daughter. That will take some time, money saving and probably can't be started for a while anyway due to lockdown measures and such. This means that she is reluctant to have me do any major work on the garden because its current layout isn't as she wants. I, however, would rather do some work in the garden now, even if that will then be undone however many years in the future. I also can't help but think we are a bit late to create lawn for our daughter. She is nine years of age now (going on nineteen) and, by the time we get the back garden landscaped, there is probably very little time left in which lawnspace would be important to her. More likely she might want to spent a summer afternoon on a sun lounger on our (already extant) decking. Still, while I can't make large purchases for the garden without my wife's signoff, there is nothing stopping me doing a little work and maybe adding some plants to brighten the place up a bit. Watch this space.

A gardening promise for 2020

Okay, so we have been moved into our humble little semi for around 6 years now. It is well passed time we did something with the garden. Not only to personalise it and make it feel more "ours", but also to provide an outside space of which the whole family enjoy taking advantage.

The grand landscaping dreams we had when we first moved in have been tempered by familiarity and laziness and now we intend to indulge in some heavy duty planting to add colour and depth to our currently very lacklustre back garden.

Already this month, we have tidied the space a little and made some plans for what we want to do. All we wait on now is some better weather.

More attention to the garden required!

Spent much of the bank holiday weekend tidying up the garden. Weeding, pruning, turning over the soil...

Now it looks a little tidier and my body is considerably achier.

We have a guy coming around to value our house for our upcoming remortgage, so a tidy garden could only help improve his opinion of our home sweet home.

We have plans to work our garden into a traditional "english country garden" style, with plants overgrowing all over the place and a laissex-faire attitude to weeding. Our only problem is that the previous owner had exactly the opposite attitude. Leaving shale and gravel everywhere to discourage weeds and rather underwhelming choice of plants.

We have a lot of work ahead getting all the gravel up so we can do a bit of planting.

We're also considering having vegetables growing in planters and baskets to supplement our kitchen stocks.

Watch this space!

Winter doldrums

Garden is deep in winter slumber. Half overgrown with weeds in places. The decking having a coating of grime that I will strive to remove when the weather gets a bit better.

When we have such big plans for the garden, it is frustrating to have to wait out the winter months before we can put any of our plans into action. Frustrating, but probably better for our family bank balance.

As I come from a family of gardeners, I feel pressure to have our back garden transformed into a little patch of paradise as soon as possible. Both my Dad and Granddad were big gardeners, spending a lot of their free time looking after their respective patches. Both of them had large gardens. Mine is smaller, but I hope to mould it into something they both would be proud of and happy to work in.

Big plans

Managed to pay a little overdue attention to the garden this last weekend. Mostly weeding and tidying up. Some pruning, ready for winter. Most markedly of all, though, we measured the dimensions of our garden. Vital task if we are to complete the massive makeover we intend for 2017.

Just a little over 9m by 5m is a fairly modest size for a back garden. Our front garden came already pretty much as we wanted it, so won't be getting much attention from us and isn't included in these plans. We intend to pull up the paving slabs that constitute the upper part of our drive and lay a lawn there. Somewhere for our daughter to play, considering we don't really use our garage or back garden to store our little Vauxhall Corsa.

Then the decking, that we had originally planned to pull up, is being kept. The location is just such a sun trap and so right-feeling that we already dream of lazy summer afternoons and late evening drinkies there.

Well, the plotting and planning are, at least, something to keep our minds busy over winter.

Getting a little overgrown

Since we moved into this home just over a year and a half ago, our garden has been woefully underutilised and underappreciated. At the moment, it stands overgrown and uncared for. This is partly because we aren't really sure precisely what we want to do with it.

I've had a look at the garden planning websites online, but find myself a little disappointed by them. Considering the miracles of modern technology, I was half expecting being able to spend a couple of hours designing our dream garden with a fully interactive and user friendly interface and then taking a virtual stroll through the garden-to-be through some wonderfully rendered 3D world.

In reality, the interface of each designer program I tried was awkward, frustrating and just plain unfathomable. Could someone not manage to create something a little easier to work with?

Still, that isn't really any kind of valid reason for ignoring my garden responsibilities. Next year will see our little suburban garden flourish. I hope.

Back garden - as it stands now..

Okay, so here is (most of) the back garden as it stands today.

I say most of as the drive down the side of our house leads to our garage (or man cave) just to the right of this picture.

Our plan is (currently) to keep the decking at the back, level the garden area a little and add a lawned area for our daughter to play on.

The greatest plans

Had been planning to mow the lawn today. That was before a huge downpour of rain this morning. Will have to postpone that, then, despite it looking pretty wild already.

Other plans for the garden are on hold to some extent. We have grand plans for landscaping, but that means any planting would be wasted should we need to landscape that area of the garden afterward.

That said, we have made a couple of other sundry purchases. Namely, wind chimes (yes, yes, I know) and a chiminea. We might actually start spending sometime on our decking anytime soon should the weather improve. Or, at least, should the weather prove more consistently sunny.

Of mice and men

Such grand plans for the garden. Then is rains for three days preceeding the weekend. D'Oh!