Word of the Week – Gardens

This week in our house it has all been about

gardens

 

In truth it has been all about gardens for longer than a week as we started Operation Garden Renovation a few weeks ago now, but this week I am really feeling that it is overwhelming our life!

My last post about it was all about the bonfire, but in fact I am a week behind on the progress posts and the hubby and my brothers have since filled a huge skip with rubble from the 4 bits of patio that used to be in the garden. More on that to come soon!

We have been thinking a lot about the design of the garden, whether to go for patio or deck and what else we want to achieve with the garden. We have also realised that the garden actually slopes gradually towards the house and we may need some sort of step up if we want the lawn area to be level, and a better solution for drainage to avoid getting damp problems.

Because we think now that we would like a patio we have realised this is all getting beyond our skill level and have contacted loads of landscape gardeners to see how much it costs, timeframes etc. Of all of those we contacted, only one has come back to us! I don’t understand? Do people not want the work? Seems crazy to me! The one that has comes to us seems very good but it is looking likely to be more expensive than we had hoped and that it won’t be done as quickly as we had hoped. The deadline of a birthday bbq at the end of April is looking extremely unlikely.

On the recommendation of my friend’s fiancee (who is a carpenter himself) we have contacted another guy who is coming at the weekend and I really hope he can give us some good news!

We have more work planned for this weekend – another huge skip is coming tomorrow along with some heavy duty equipment. We are hiring a stump grinder  to hopefully make light(er) work of the 20ish conifer tree stumps in the garden, and cultivator coming to try and dig up as many of the roots of Ivy and other bushes so that it doesn’t all just come back again immediately through whatever we decide or manage to get down.

Hopefully by the end of this weekend the majority of the work we can do will have been done, and we will have a better of idea of who will be doing the rest, and when that will be! Then my life (and blog) can get a bit back to normal and less garden focussed! It’s exciting but draining as we want to be happy with it. We hope to live here for many years and don’t want to regret the choices we make in the garden and have to go through this all again at some point!

What is your word of the week?

The Reading Residence

Operation Garden Renovation #3 The Bonfire!

Operation Garden Renovation is now well under way and with the help of hubby’s brothers we made some fantastic progress last weekend, though I have to say I never realised before that my hubby’s family was a family of pyromaniacs!!

They started off the day by comparing their ‘man’ tools and then set about demolishing the shed.

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It may have been an idea to take the stuff out of the shed first, but I don’t think anyone wanted to go in there – you know what sheds are like for spiders and bugs and we had an inkling there was mice in there…. and we were right! Once the shed was down the boys found a lot of evidence of mice. When we moved in we had put some bird food in there and the mice had scoffed the lot. They had also scoffed through cushions, boxes and all sorts and there was a LOT of poo etc. No actual mice to be found though!

evidence of mice

After the removal of the shed there was a lot of discussion over what to do with the mountains of rubbish we were creating. Hubby and I cut down a lot of bushes and foliage last week and there was all the wood of the arbor to be removed too. Hubby had mentioned to me the idea of a fire, but to be honest I was very nervous of that idea and wasn’t sure it was very sensible to have a bonfire in the garden.

But, hubby and his brothers decided it was a good idea, and persuaded me that it would be a very small, contained fire, and it would go nowhere near the fences, and they assured me that they would not burn down any of our neighbours houses or gardens. So, I was overruled! They called in Granddad as apparently he loves fire and would have been most miffed to miss out on the action!

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I have to say I was quite impressed with the fire starting skills, and it started off small, but soon we had quite a fire going!

Then came the arbor’s turn to be pulled down, and though it looked like it was fairly rotten, it actually turned out to be a lot stronger than we thought!

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This was Monkey’s first experience of fire, and of course we kept him at a very safe distance, and there was always one of us watching over him to make sure he went nowhere near the flames. He loves his uncles very much so had lots of cuddles from them. He also had a real treat as we never have cans of drink, but thought it was a good idea for all the outdoor work, and well, Monkey was obsessed with them and had one in his hands almost at all times! It’s sugar free lilt so thankfully no crazy sugar rush later!

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We started to burn some of the cardboard from the shed, but it was sending off the huge sheets of ash and I didn’t want it to end up in all the neighbour’s gardens so we stuck to wood and foliage after that, though we definitely had enough of that to be going on with. The ‘small’ fire I was promised turned into a raging inferno! Well not quite, as it was controlled and a safe distance from fences etc. but it definitely end up being a lot larger than we originally planned. ( I will point out Monkey had gone for his nap by this point!)

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It was a very successful day and we managed to clear a lot of the rubbish without needing a trip to the dump or the hiring of a skip, though I am sure we will need to do both of those over the coming weeks! The garden looks so much bigger now too. We knew that the shed and arbor were making the garden feel smaller than it is, but we didn’t realise quite how much bigger it would feel once they are gone!

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Now it looks like a wasteland or rubbish dump, but you can at least really get a feel for the width of the garden for the first time!

We went out again in the evening to burn some of the ends of logs or bits that had not fully burned, and I love this picture Daddy took of Monkey watching the flames while sitting in the trike 🙂

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I’m linking this post with the lovely Annie at Mammasaurus Blog for How Does Your Garden Grow – though I am aware this post isn’t really about anything growing! Hope that is ok!

Mammasaurus and How Does Your Garden Grow?

Design Ideas for Operation Garden Renovation – Our Spring Project

You may have read that we have started Operation Garden Renovation this Spring. We had it in mind that we would get going with this project this year and with the sunny weather arriving, we have made the most of it and got out there nice and early.

At the moment it is all about clearance and creating a blank canvas we can work with. It was so higgledy piggeldy before and felt a lot smaller than it is. We had an idea in our head of how we wanted it to end up looking, but honestly, as the clearance has progressed we have changed our minds and are now uncertain of how we would like it to look.

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Love cottage gardens

We have to think about how we are going to use the garden. While I would love a cottage style garden or an abundance of wildflowers, that look doesn’t really fit with the space we have, or what we want to use it for. We have a child and hope to have another. We need space for them to run and play and explore as they grow. We want them to learn to ride trikes and bikes in the garden. We’d love them to play football, or have a swingball in the garden. I love the idea of waterfights in the summer.

We need open spaces. A mix of deck/patio and lawn. With some beds of trees and bushes and flowers too.

We originally thought that we would like a large decked area, pretty much where the existing patio was but going off diagonally rather than squared. However we realised that that area is hugely sunny, and actually it may be better to have the seating area in the one slightly shady bit of the garden, which is under the tree, behind the conservatory.

We’re also wondering whether decking is the way to go, or to go for a patio. Not like the rubbish patio that was there before, but perhaps a curved path starting from the garage door, curving round past the conservatory doors, and opening out onto a large curved patio area. There are so many different designs of patios, with a variety of colours and shapes and sizes of stones.

Hubby really likes this circular design, and I do like it, but I’ not sure how you then lead that into a path around the house…

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This is quite nice too:

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 (Both the above Patio images come from Rose Landscapes in Peterborough)

We want most of the area to be lawned and then will have a few beds, and we would love to plant a few young trees, sort of spread around the edges of the garden, for a bit of privacy as they grow over the years. (Plus I have a hammock and I would love to be able to have a couple of trees to attach it to again! :))

We’d like some trees to give us some lovely colour and texture throughout the year. I’d love some beautiful blossom in spring, and some gorgeous russet or golden leaves in the autumn.

Perhaps a Japanese Dogwood for some nice blossom?

and a Chinese Tupelo, or Oriental Sweet Gum for autumn colours?

   

These are obviously rather large specimens and we will be starting off with much smaller versions of these!

Then we will think about bushes (love a nice hebe), get some spring bulbs in for next year and plan some summer flowers too.

LOTS to think about with this garden renovation. We are doing well on the clearance front (more to come on that on Wednesday) but I think we will need to get an expert in to help us decide on patio/deck and the designs etc. as we hope this renovation will be the only renovation on the garden and last for many many years to come. We don’t want to make a hasty decision and then regret it within a few years (or months!).

It is good fun though, we have got a real project to sink our teeth into, and a blank canvas so we can make our garden exactly how we want it to be… if we can figure out what that is!!

I am linking this post up with Iona and Jocelyn for The Theme Game, as this week’s theme is Gardens.

The Reading Residence

I am also linking up to the lovely Sara for The Prompt, which this week is all about Spring Projects, and this is very much our Spring Project!

mumturnedmom
All of the above images (bar one) were obtained from a Google Image search, I do not have copyright for any of these images and are merely using them for illustration purposes

A Family Day

Sunday was just a lovely day. We had Hubby’s parents and brothers and sister in law round for a roast dinner. Nothing grand, just a nice roast dinner and get together for a good natter, as all too often time goes by without seeing people, or without all of us getting together. I love family occasions and we love cooking and preparing for it (though not so much the grand house clean that is needed in advance!).

Monkey loves spending time with all his family too, so he had lots of fun with his Aunt and Uncle.

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And his Aunt and Granny

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And his Granddad.

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He’s a bit obsessed with books at the moment, which we do not have a problem with, and it was nice for someone else to be able to read the same stories to him over, and over again, rather than just us hehe 🙂

We had a yummy yummy roast, though Monkey decided to be a fidget pants and played musical chairs, taking it in turns to sit on everyone’s lap rather than on his chair! Daft apeth!

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I decided that I wanted to try and get a shot of all of us together, as it’s something we hardly ever do. The last time was a year and a half ago! So we set the self timer up and crowded round to get a photo. Keeping Monkey still and getting everyone to have their eyes open at the same time was a bit of a challenge!!

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This was the best shot we got, though Granddad’s eyes are closed. I changed the settings so we wouldn’t get a monkey blur – but then didn’t like the lighting! I’ve had a bit of a play to brighten it up, it’s not perfect, but at least we are all smiling, or in Monkey’s case, still!

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Anyway, it’s a nice record of a lovely family day 🙂

Family Photo Friday @ Thursday's Child, Friday's Thoughts

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Operation Garden Renovation #2 Starting the Clearance

If you read last week’s post, you’ll know that we have a whole load of clearance to do in this garden, and that one post is not really going to cover it. It is probably going to take quite a few weeks to just get it cleared so it feels like quite a daunting task to undertake.

We are planning a bbq for my birthday at the end of April so that has lit a fire under us and given us the push we need to really get going with it. We have asked for help from our brothers and they are all coming to give us a hand over the next few weeks, but for the first weekend we are on our own – but still determined to make a start!

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Hubby and I thought that as it was just the two of us we would start with the simple stuff and cut down the existing bushes. We have some of the prickliest bushes in existence, seriously one of these bushes has spines about 2 inches long, terrifying, and fricking painful when you get stabbed by it!

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The garden is also FULL of junk. The previous owners seemed to use it as their personal dumping ground. Anything they didn’t want or didn’t know what to do with, it just got dumped in the garden. We found so much stuff in the early days, such as rusted rakes and loads of other old, broken garden tools. We thought we had got rid of it all, but no, we found some other hidden gems during our lopping. Including:

A sock

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A plate

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Loads of bricks

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An old clock.

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Some hosepipe.

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Just in and around the bushes. I mean why? We also found loads of old bike tyres and lots of balls in various shapes and conditions, which monkey had fun with for a bit.

Monkey initially had a lot of fun entertaining himself in his little car (I got it from ebay for a fiver last summer!)

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and then had some fun rolling around in the garden..

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But he did get bored after a while, and we realised we need a wheelbarrow and to actually figure out what to do with the growing pile of garden waste, so we left it for another day.

Next week we have hubby’s brothers round to help and we should get this clearance well under way!!

Mammasaurus and How Does Your Garden Grow?

Operation Garden Renovation

The first breaths of spring are in the air and it is time to venture into the garden and start our mission to make it better.

Our back garden is a mess.

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When we moved into our house a couple of years ago there was a LOT that needed doing throughout (that’s why we got it so cheap!). We have done a lot – we have a new kitchen, bathroom, put in a shower-room downstairs and have decorated almost every room (one left, more on that to come later this year :)). We’ve also started on the outside stuff but the inside was our main focus. The time has come though to take control and make our garden somewhere we actually want to be rather than just a mess that gives us the shivers!

Like I say though, we have done some things since we moved in. When we moved in, the front garden looked like this:

 

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Now it looks like this (excuse the hippo bag and the bin :)) It’s not perfect but a darn sight better.

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The back garden was different too as there was some huge and ugly, badly maintained conifers all the way round, sucking the life and light out of the garden. There was also masses of Ivy, everywhere! (not the best pictures, this was mid-way through having the trees taken down).

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 We’ve had the conifers down and were sort of waiting for the soil to rejuvenate a bit to do much more. This time has allowed us to think about what we want from the garden and basically we have decided that the thing to do is just to get rid of everything. EVERYTHING.

The rotting shed that is full of cardboard and spiders (shudder).

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The awful arbour thingy that cuts the patio in half.

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(In the background of this photo you may see a bit of yellow hose pipe – the previous owners ran electric cable through the hosepipe to give electricity to the shed! Bonkers!!!)

The patio itself that is uneven, weed filled and has no drainage meaning that a lake forms by the back doors whenever it rains (that can’t be good for the foundations).

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The lawn that is basically just moss and weeds and the flower beds that are huge and now just full of weeds, tree stumps and Ivy.

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Oh and all the other random rubbish that the previous owners have just dumped in the garden.

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Doesn’t it just look delightful? Exactly what you want in a garden (eye rolls)!

Late summer last year we tried to get quotes from contractors to do the hard work for us, but most of them never got back to us, and one who did gave us a ridiculous quote and didn’t seem that keen. We realised nobody actually wants to do this for us so we are going to have to do it ourselves (with the help of our brothers – hubby and I have 4 between us, yay!) so this is the start of Operation Garden Renovation, I will let you know how we get on!! 🙂

Mammasaurus and How Does Your Garden Grow?

First signs of Spring

This winter has been wet and cold and miserable. I think most people would agree with that. Which is why I was so relieved to have a sunny day on Sunday. This meant we could get out in the garden, and to my delight there are some beautiful Spring flowers starting to appear.

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Just a few lovely crocuses but it reminds me that this horrible wet winter is nearly over and hopefully we’ll all have a bit more sunshine and colour in our lives very soon

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My father in law gave us some bluebells to plant recently (my favourite flower) so we made the most of the sun this weekend to get them in the ground and start to have a bit of a tidy up in the front garden. The back garden…..is a whole other story so there’ll be more on that soon!

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Monkey really enjoyed being in the garden and even tried to help with the digging! Good boy!

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I’m not much of a gardener but his daddy is so he must get that from him!

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I can’t wait for these beautiful Bluebells to flower! There’s a little bit of woodland called Bluebell Woods not too far away and I try and pop over there every spring to see the carpet of Bluebells in bloom. I’m sure I will still go, but I’m looking forward to seeing some beautiful Bluebells in our own garden too 🙂

To close, here is a picture of Bluebell Woods from a few years ago. One of my favourite places in Spring.

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Mammasaurus and How Does Your Garden Grow?
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