Would you fancy a a few days........

21 comments

and that’s how it started, a lovely weekend in Staffordshire, where we used to live, our daughter invited us for a relaxing couple of days, and if you fancy some gardening she said………… well, whats the garden looking like now, we asked our other daughter who had just returned from visiting her sister, oh, it’s not too bad, she said……..
Here are the before pictures….

The grass had not been cut for a year!! and the flower beds met the grass, still we like a challenge, and the weather was perfect, and it was good to be back…..
a little robin followed us around but we could find nothing for him, the soil is dreadful (had forgotten that) very sandy, the whole of the village is mostly built on sandstone, so we cut the grass five times, tried to tidy the edges, prune what shrubs there were, two enormous fir trees had been taken down, and the stumps left. So we made an enormous heap of cuttings to rot down, and everything else was piled high on to an old flower bed in the middle of the garden to be burnt.

And after two days this is what it looked like, certainly not perfect, but tidier….. And although we miss our large garden and our daughter, we do not miss the awful soil, that needed constantly feeding, where plants took ages to mature, where all our tender plants died most winters where we never had a flower on a wisteria because the frost got to it first, we did make the right decision to move to the sunny South after all!!!!!

6 Dec, 2009
17 likes

Comments

Hywel

You made a big difference. I hope you enjoyed it aswell :o)

6 Dec, 2009

Madperth

Good job, DD! I hope the pile in the last pic is being left for the hedgehogs!! :~))

6 Dec, 2009

Grindle

you've made a big difference in that couple of days :))

6 Dec, 2009

Sanbaz

fantstic job dotty and mr dotty to,, i take it your daughter doesnt like gardening,, does it not dishearten you if its not kept up dotty after all your hard work,,,i agree mari dont burn the rubbish if hedgehogs in the area,, i also didnt realise you could kill the stumps off like that, great idea dotty :o))

6 Dec, 2009

Mushybanna

Fantastic job DD
.EErmmm When you coming to Norfolk next ?? :o))

6 Dec, 2009

Wagger

What a lucky daughter - I'm sure she appreciates your help. But relaxing???

6 Dec, 2009

Lincslass

Bet both the robin and your daughter appreciate all you have done Dd and you certainly made a difference,its good when you stand back and can see where you`ve been, aren`t mums and dads good..........

6 Dec, 2009

Mad

You were so busy and made a tremendous difference. Wouldn't it be better for them (they're obviously not gardeners) to get rid of the grass, because it will never be a lawn., will it? It would be fairly easy - we did it for our daughter with her help, some years ago and it is fine. We put garden membrane all over the grass, held down with 6" nails (it was so windy in Scotland) then covered it with bark chippings. She has since cut X's in it and planted shrubs through it and found that the soil, after a year had improved as the grass rotted, adding nitrogen. It wasn't too expensive. Her garden was so big and the grass was neglected beyond repair, but now that part is a woodland garden with lovely shrubs and trees. It is perfectly easy to walk on even when wet.
There would just be the borders to do then - easier for you, unless your daughter becomes a gardener.

6 Dec, 2009

Spritzhenry

You must have been such welcome visitors! Did you spend ALL your time gardening?

My daughter isn't a gardener, either, so when we go there, guess what I do! ;-)

6 Dec, 2009

Bamboo

Asking people who don't like gardening what state their garden is in is like asking my son how clean or not his flat is currently - they always say, oh its not too bad, and when you get there, the garden's practically derelict (and my son's flat would be of interest to a microbiologist). Looked a lot better by the time you'd finished, that's for sure;-))

6 Dec, 2009

Clarice

What a lot of work you did.

6 Dec, 2009

Rachelsmum

I am sure you must have been very satisfied with your hard work - lets hope your daugher (or son in law) is inspired to at least cut the grass!

I must say I could do with a bit of Staffordshire sandy soil here in Cardiff where its clay - needs a lot of feeding and digging. Digging is hard once a border has been laid out - I guess I should take a border apart every year , re-dig it and re-plant it again. But I can imagine that if clay is broken up and mixed with compost and grit, the results are better than a sandy soil.

I am off to my daughters for Christmas and will probably take some pics there - in Luxembourg

6 Dec, 2009