New House, New Garden

Well, not strictly true, the house is 50 yrs ood, and the garden has been only lightly maintained for a good few years.

We brought over many plants from our previous place - mostly herbs, but also anything moveable. We also brought the greenhouse. Unfortunately the contents of the greenhouse didn't survive the move .

First job in the new garden was to fell three Leylandii to open the place up - I don't normally fell trees, butfor these weeds I make an exception. Then came the ivy - which ran the full width of the garden at the bottom, and concealed a dry-stone wall (which we didn't even know we had). The ivy was over 8 ft high, and spread out nearly 10 ft thick, in a vast tangled mass. It has taken 4 weeks, we've had to borrow a truck a few tines just to transport the ivy clippings to the composting centre. There were  couple of trees, several trunks which had been felled and dumped, as well as all sorts of bushes which had been completely swamped out.

We're going for complete clearance of the area, as it will be our vegetable patch, so we've had to poison the stumps, preparatory to digging them out (don't usually go in for poisoning, bu ivy is notoriously difficult to clear. Once the stumps are out - about 4 weeks time - and the ground levelled, we'll cover it with some old carpet, and leave it over winter (that should kill all the weeds). Next spring we'll lay out tge beds andget planting.

Next job is to site the greenhouse, which will be on the south east side of the garden (where the Leylandii were. At the moment its sitting in the middle of the lawn! The roots are now dealt with - 1/2 a days work for two of us with axe & spade - and next weekend (hopefully) we'll be digging the foundations and and laying the floor, and it should be in position by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, we've got the herbs (in pots) growing (and being used) in a temporary "herb garden" near the kitchen door, and some baby spinach and mixed leaves growing in containers (planted rather late, but nevertheless seem to be happy).

The greenhouse isn't heated, so we don't get a great deal of use out of it over winter, but we have a south facing double-glazed heated conservatory, which we are going to use for crops as well as decorative planting. It has a sort of "jungle" feel to it at the moment, with an 8' umbrella tree, swiss cheese plants, a couple of dragon trees, aspidistra, etc. etc. etc.. Also a wall full of succulents and cactii. I think I need to build some staging for trays to getting some planting done (I think I need to get rid of the settee that's in there at the moment ).

And then there is the house to complete. Most of its done - kitchen finished, living and bedrooms done,carpers laid, curtains almost finished, paintwork done. Once that's all over, there's the garage to tackle  - its a glory-hole at the moment, stacked floor to ceiling with tools, equipment, computers, furniture.

One day I'll get to put my feet up!