HARD LABOUR 2025

8.30am start in the garden and then 3 hours of shovelling mud before the rain arrived. Not the way that most people have started the New Year. But I am not most people. This is a project that should have been done right first time at the start of 2024. The reason for all this toil is that for 1 month of the year the tulips look beautiful, then for 11 months of the year I am looking at mounds of weed covered mud. Solution, dig everything up and put the tulips into pots, then put a layer of coral on top for the remaining 11 months. Genius or eccentric its better than before, and I am happy with the solution.

Decorative pots for the tulips instead of weed covered mud

rescued tulip bulbs ready to be replanted

these designs remind me of Paul Klee paintings for some reason, natural coral stone in the centre

little plant in its own coral circle

THE LIGHT SHOW

This is the end of the transformation, the lights were not in the plan but they make such a big difference.

December 2024

September 2022

THE BIG DIG

I didn’t think I would be saying this in 2024 but I have started on the final garden project. This is an area of the garden that was the most challenging. Under the plastic are 3 large tree stumps, at least 2 of them were apple trees that blew down in the storms of 2020. This is also an area that had a lot of building debris and tall weeds. Each spade produces a network of weed and tree roots so its going to be a task but the aim is to remove all of this and get it levelled. Half will be turned into a gravel path so I can trim the giant hedge. The robin near the spade has followed me around all year and appears within seconds of me digging. It has stayed remarkably slim given the supply of fast food it has received this year.

Final garden project? underway in 2024

DREAM PATIO

Do people really dream about, patios, kitchens, bathrooms? My dream patio consists of several thousand kilograms of gravel with a thick layer of plastic underneath, covering every square centimetre of soil so not a single weed has a chance of life. This has now been achieved not only in this area of the property but several others. I will take this obsessive level of design to the final area that needs work at the bottom of our garden next year. Final project for this year is to replace the front driveway gate and then I am shutting down.

November 2024

Pulling up all the old paving stones so I can put down a layer of plastic across the entire area. October 2024

March 2023

ONE MORE WALL

After damaging one of my fingers through repeated exposure to lime mortar and cement I told the wife this morning not to worry as I have no more plans to build any more walls this year. However, when clearing away the stones from the demolition of the old driveway I realised I had enough good stone for a small project I had been thinking about. By taping up the damaged finger with a plastic bag I knew I could be back in business straight away. Aiming to finish the wall within a week.

More wall building opportunities

WORST WALL IN THE VILLAGE

To the best one?. Another job ticked off in 2024 that will not need doing for another 20 years. The centre of the wall was ‘held together’ by mud with big ivy roots growing through it. These are the kind of ‘one time only’ jobs that I like doing.

Ivy, mud and moss already removed and wall partially repaired. Drain discovered under mud and grass

Wall repointed and ready for village inspection

NEAT AND TIDY

No trees, no ivy and no weeds with very little of my time needed in the future. Just the way I like it. Some posts replaced, areas of wall rebuilt and all the wall repointed. Talking to a neighbour, this area of the house was built by Italian prisoners of war, no documentation of course, but I will go with that story, adds more colour.

October 2024

September 2024, demolishing the original property entrance

UNTOUCHED FOR 25 YEARS

The garage exterior project is complete. It will now be a low maintenance area going forward which will free up future time to do the things I really want to do. Speaking to my neighbours gardener he says he has worked for them for 25 years and nothing was done about this piece of land until now. Its a big transformation.

September 2022

October 2024 finished

WHERES THE HOUSE?

The top photo is what greeted us on our move in September 2022. Ivy growing over the top of the roof and through some of the windows? The area I am currently working on is on the left side, full of bushes, ivy roots growing through the wall and several tree stumps needing to be removed. And a foot of gravel that needed to be cleared as well as the near side wall that was the original entrance before the cottage was extended.

Nature run wild Sep 2022

Bushes cleared and demolition of original driveway wall Sep 2024

All clear and ready to rebuild wall, random concrete cover found burried, may use as a step, Sep 2024

A TRANSFORMATION

This was a huge amount of manual labour, 6 tree stumps to clear and tons of soil dug out which is now at the bottom of the garden, eventually to be cleared. Drainage has now been sorted though the road edges need building up and repairing. Just need to put in a low level set of posts and rope to keep the village dogs off.

Garage exterior Sep 2022

Garage exterior Sep 2024

Garage exterior Sep 2024

6 TREE STUMPS IN 1 DAY

Removed!, 4 were all linked together by a thick root that had started with the original and sprouted 3 children, a metre and a half long in total! Literally tonnes of soil were shifted to get down to the right level. I found the original stones that created a border on the road side verge. Stage 2 will be to put in some proper roadside kerbs and a drainage solution and plastic membrane with gravel on top.

Garage exterior September 2022

Garage exterior 2024

THE HORROR

I forgot how completely wild this garden had become when we first bought the house. There was a huge amount of work to be done and this is still occupying a lot of my time. Good progress is being made but maybe another 1-2 years before it is complete.

September 2022

September 2024

September 2024

CAN OF WORMS

The demolition of the original gated entrance was meant to be a fairly straightforward job. But now it has created several other jobs that should be done before I put down a big patio. These being digging down to the correct levels, rebuilding the wall and replacing rotting fence posts, replacing a plastic drain pipe and hopper with an original cast iron one and digging out a drainage channel for it. Whoever extended the house could not be bothered about a level ground. The damp proof course when it comes to the back of the house jumps up a row of bricks because the ground at the back is higher!

Good bye gate posts

DOUBLE RAINBOW

AN ENGLISH GENTLEMENS GARDEN

Our inherited overgrown jungle is slowly being transformed. Over run with ivy and thorn bushes I am gradually gaining back control using hard landscaping and acres of plastic sheeting beneath newly laid gravel paths. I am no gardener, I think formal design and building are my strengths and the garden is progressing along these lines. All the cast iron guttering is now refurbished and actually working as it should rather than a series of waterfalls around the house. Imminent arrival of in-laws from Mexico has meant a rapid push forward and I think another year in the garden and it will be finished.

Rampant ivy and weeds removed, walls built and re-built. An immaculate scene, but for how long?

The early stages of an eccentric wall build where the stones will become sculptures?

Cast iron guttering, formerly a waterfall over the door due to shot seals and blocked pipework now immaculately refurbished but more importantly leak free

WORK RESUMES

More wall building, this time at the end of the garden. This gravel area was actually a road that headed down into several fields, that was before the land was sold off and several houses and hedges built. This gravel now has the aspect of a road to nowhere as it terminates at the hedge. The idea of the wall is to give it a properly defined end and turn the road into a terrace. Then the left third will be kept as gravel and the other two thirds the gravel will be removed and turned to grass.

As it is now before being grassed over.

ISLANDS AND PATHS

That is the strategy in my fight against the encroaching ivy. My 3 neighbours seem to have accepted that ivy is part of the countryside, this would be the sensible approach. However, I have never taken that route, and I will be fighting the stuff till the day I die. I think I stand half a chance of at least holding the line, and it looks better than a set of trenches.

The gravel now occupies an area that had the tree root and a sea of ivy

2 DAYS OF HARD LABOUR

The stakes are rising in terms of hard labour, who would be a landscape gardener?, like breaking rocks but with a salary. I approached this with a calm determination, there is no other way when all you have is a spade and a chainsaw. This stump had been taunting me for 18 months and even when I had cut all the roots it would not budge. I ended up burrowing underneath it with 2 mules and a wagon. Tomorrow, a painting day, I fear it won’t be any easier.

Only 3 more to go

STAGE 1

of the low maintenance garden project is complete. I can feel my anxiety levels dropping now there will be less weeds in the garden, although I still have the flame thrower on standby. It seems like a huge amount of work to create a low maintenance garden but with a forest of 3m wide hedges to contend with I need some sort of long term plan.

Gravel is a thing of beauty even without flowering plants

4 HOURS OF HARD LABOUR

To reclaim 6 square metres of garden, more like 8 hours of hard labour when I factor in the initial clearing of tree stumps, brambles and ivy. This means another 3-4 mornings to finish the central border. I can already envision it as finished and its going to have a big impact on the garden. I think it is time well spent, though it tells me this garden project is not going to be a quick fix. I think the garden will be unrecognisable when all is done.

The concrete border and stepping stones were already there, buried under mud