Time in the Garden

Being adult and taking on the house has in this case also meant taking on the garden as well, it is a huge project and would have not been possible without the wonderful help of a very dedicated person. (Who shall be known as Mel on here.) Today is a great achievement as today the gravel is done!

You see the front garden used to be lovely with fantastic rose bushes which were known to bloom even in snow. However years of neglect and some harsh winters turned the front (and back for that matter) garden into a state. Now for a while Mel has been working on the front garden in her spare time. She is the one responsible for getting it to the current state and I have arrived in time to help get it finished off. (The sooner it was finished though the sooner we start on the back together.) One of the main bugbears of this project has been the gravel, as it's easy maintenance when set up, however it not the simplest of things to put together.

For starters the area needed clearing of not only all the plants, but also the roots, and then a rather large amount of soil needed shifting too. At a guess about a ton has gone from the front as it needed levelling and bringing down a few inches as it was too high along the wall of the house, as that can cause no end of damp issues. This was mainly done back in April, where my visit with my wonderful boyfriend proved timely to help shift a large chunk of that soil. Since then the garden has been transformed by Mel, who put down all the weed membrane, sorted out the boarder gravel and potted all the plants; some flowers, some herbs and some experimental things. However the paths that run along the in-between the two flowerbeds that separate the house from the front hedge were a collection of gravel that was here more than twenty years ago and subsequent top ups. Yet there was no weed membrane underneath, and being run down there was all sorts of things mixed in with the gravel. The hair clips I understand. The odd bottle cap or two? Around here fair enough. Yet the amount of glass? I realised that passers by must have really been using our run down front garden as a rubbish bin. So to save money on getting more gravel Mel started to sort through it. This was a very time consuming and long job, one that was driving her slightly insane.

As I have now taken over the running of the house and garden I decided that enough was enough, sorting was going to take far too long, and we are running out of summer months. Some shopping around later, and a quick phone call to a local supplier a ton of gravel is delivered for an extremely reasonable price! Me and Mel then set to work finishing off the paths! This was still back breaking as the gravel was placed on the driveway and the gate to the garden is up the hill...yet a lot of spade and wheel barrow work later the paths were laid.

The sense of achievement enough justifies paying out a little bit of money that I did that and saving our sanity, as sorting out that gravel was a little wearing. :)

Now it's time to move onto the side of the house and then to start clearing the back garden, most of which is being started next week while I am away sadly. Yet as always there is always something to do, I am just ecstatic that at least one part of the garden now looks more like a garden should do. :)