Bridienme's Profile

Hi Everyone

My name is Jill and I live in the north east of England with my husband, Stef, and my 2 lovely dogs, Bridie, an 11 year old English Springer Spaniel and Bungle, a 19 month old West Highland Terrior. My lovely 88 year old mum lives with us as well and we all get along famously. We rent our home from a local housing association and I must admit the garden was in appalling condition. We have a huge Japanese Cherry tree in the garden which covers the surface with roots so we can't dig a garden. We have, therefore, made the right-hand side of the garden a pot garden and we are so pleased with it. Then 2 years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I found the garden to be my place of solice and relaxation, where I could forget what was happening to me and what treatment I would have to go through. This year I had a risk reduction mastectomy and to get me through the worry I started off the left handside of the garden and made some raised vegetable beds. For our first year we did amazingly well with potatoes, turnips, lettuce, beetroot, carrots, onions, cauliflower, brocolli and our parsnips and brussels are coming along beautifully for Christmas. We also bought 3 patio fruit trees that have an abundance of pears, apples and plums on them so we are well pleased. I love alpines so our rear garden was revamped with a much needed rescue of the lawn and then I was lucky enough to find a nursery in York that was closing down and was selling large lots of shrubs, trees and alpines. I was delighted to win 270 alpine plants for an amazing price of £35! but boy did I underestimate the time it would take to plant them all. Delighted with the result though and we now have beautiful gardens that we can now relax and enjoy, infact we have entered a community garden competition which is judged on Tuesday so we are keeping fingers crossed. My husband is disabled but he has a stool he sits on and he loves pottering and it helps him exercise, even just a little bit and we are both loving the fresh air. Guess we are two gardening converts and will be for many years to come hopefully and we look forward to reading about everyone's garden tips and questions. Feel right at home already.