Back Garden, a digger and Swiss Tony....................................

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No rest for the wicked is what I am beginning to think, we certainly have it all planned and then the idea grows, and grows, and grows.
The front garden is more or less finished, so now my thoughts have migrated to the space at the back of the house. The size of the garden is 30 × 150 ft so it is a long narrow plot so the ideas of having different beds with winding paths twisting between jungle to arid to water to fruit then to vegetable is going to be a challenge.
The Easter weekend seemed like the most obvious time to give it a shot and with my husband taking a few days off I decided to take advantage of this and hired a mini digger. No real plan, just to clear the plot as much as possible.

After my husband carefully manouvered the digger around the house and into the garden I decided he should be renamed!! For any of you that saw the Fast Show and remember the car dealer Swiss Tony, ‘Driving a Mini digger is like making love to a beautiful woman’ very carefully!!! My husband seemed to master the art of digger driving to a very high standard.

The top of the garden was mainly digging out tree roots and turning the soil, a lot of garden waste must have been put there aver the years as the soil was in pretty good condition.

Tree stumps weren’t the only thing we dug up!!

This I think was a cat that belonged to the previous owner :( RIP GOFFA

It was amazing just how many creatures were hiding in the undergrowth. This little fellow is a Slow Worm, looks like a snake but totally harmless. We found over 12 frogs and toads ranging from red to green and as we are having a pond I am happy to know it will be well populated.

Everyone wants to help!! Jenny was keen to take after Dad

Removing roots seemed like a safer option!!

On to the next bit, turning over soil which obviously hadn’t been touched for a good many years, very dusty and after doing soil tests lacking in potassium and nitrogen, high in phosphorus and acidic.

I was absolutely worn out and I completely took advantage of my marriage vows by getting Jed to help me with all this hard work

When the work is done the planting can start. With lots of organic matter and food, I planted the first tree. A Mexican Weeping Pine (Pinus Patula). It seems very happy here.

A Cestrum Elegans which has been planted next to a heavily pruned Camelia! It had finished flowering and needed some attention, I hope I haven’t killed it with kindness.

The area for the pond and bog gardens

The area for a little seating, ferns and jungle.

Things will take shape, the skip is arriving this weekend to get rid of all the rubbish we took out of the garden, I have a huge amount of compost from the local garden recycling centre. The asbestos shed is coming down and a new wood one is going up in its place. This is going to be a long task, but I can’t wait to get it going, I have loads of plants to put in……………watch this space.

• 22 Apr, 2009
• 7 likes

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