I bet you thought this blog had disappeared … it hasn’t. Remember – I had a chat with Martin about using it to put up family videos that we could then effectively archive and share privately. So … with a wedding, visitors from Australia and Christmas in the New Forest to look forward to, I thought it would be a good idea to dust it off, remind myself of the workflow and share a couple of videos of our new look garden with you. [NB If that’s all you want to see, fast scroll to the bottom of the post to see them.]
We’ve been delighted with the work of Adam, Mike and Scott from Evergreen Wales, working with us to amend and implement the design of Richard – Adam’s father and business partner. From the start they’ve been amenable to making changes and have worked to a fixed-cost, regardless of how long it was going to take and indeed it ran over a bit due to the rain – which is beating down on the roof of the loft as I type this. So a really successful project and one that will give us many years of pleasure, I’m sure.
To start at the beginning. This is what the back of the garden looked like at the on the 21st October after the old cement flagstones had been lifted, the old orange-blossom trees had been removed and the footings for the new patio extension had been laid.
What is useful for us to remember is that this was not the original design proposed by Richard, but one we’d decided would be better to be sympathetic with the existing path and the flow of the garden from left to right. We’d also abandoned our thoughts of creating a barbecue area on the patio. Just how many times are we going to use it? was the question. The answer was obvious!
The next day (October 22nd) saw the paviors along the side of the housebeinge lifted and salvaged (being temporarily stored on Katie’s front garden); they have now found a new home over the road in Chris and Julie’s garden.
The old unsafe wall had been taken down and block-work put back in place. The wall would be replaced by a double-sided fence that would give us a little more width (for bikes and wheelie bins) and would also give next door a nicely finished fence too!.
The block-work for the new patio had also been done and we were anxiously waiting Richard’s attempt to match our quirky bricks with something similar. When they came, he’d managed to find a remarkably good match.
By the 9th November, we had the new path base laid, and the new drain covers in place. We also had lots of little orange cones over markers which charted the levels for the new path.
The fencing was in place too.
Apart from this panel which we’d asked to be taken down and replaced as we wanted the old brick wall (in a shocking state) to be covered up.
By now the new sandstone slabs were beginning to go down too, and we had clearly marked areas of “no walking” which made feeding the fish a challenge. I had to remember to only walk in the centre of the largest slabs. For all the time they slabs were going down, only one (the one at the front door) had to be reset – twice. Once because of Mark coming to the door, once because I just forgot!
Life was beginning to get a bit congested inside the house because we were also having a new floor laid in the Garden Room. We don’t do things by halves … do we?
The kitchen in particular took on a different outlook …
… and some plants enjoyed a little more light than they’d been previously used to …
… whilst we had to employ imaginative ways of keeping Jasper off the floor as the preparation work was undertaken.
Move forward a week or so to 18th November and on a sunny day (they had begun to diminish), we could see the finished patio, the finished fence and the finished gate and wheelie bin area.
Here are Adam and Mike working on the coal and wood store which is practical rather than aesthetic as I’m sure you’ll agree when you see it. Practicality is as important for the pensioners at no. 22 you see, or at least one of them :-).
In the front garden the purple slate chippings had been down for quite some time and the space was being used as a wheelbarrow parking area, as well as being a refuge for homeless side-path plants.
But … you could see the new path and the inset drain covers. What a change from the metal ones. Jen was over the moon at this as much as anything! We’d also decided to keep the side gate, a double bit of security I suppose, but one that doesn’t need to be invasive because the door can be folded right back to the wall and it maintains the line with the gate next door.
And so we arrive at the end of the project, this Wednesday, November 19th, with Richard bringing in plants which were planted before lunch and all was over. I went down the village, Jenny had popped out to have lunch with Sue, and when I returned – they were gone!
I asked Richard to come back (yesterday) to run through the planting for Jenny (see videos below), and we asked Adam, Mike and Scott to come back this morning so that we could thank them and give them some gifts to show our appreciation.
The pots will not be always in these positions, just placed there for the photograph.
Thanks so much (from left to right) Adam, Scott and Mike. Great job!
A couple of videos of Richard talking to Jenny, describing the planting scheme and the pruning schema. First the main planting area …
… and then the secondary planting area and a quick video tour of the completed work.
I’m looking forward to putting a few more videos up here in the next few weeks. Watch this space!!!!
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