sun – Page 2 – Gardening within LiMitS

Changing the front garden!

I started off digging a trench for tulips in the front garden and I dug a ten centimetre trench. It defines the area to the left which must remain garden and we had intended to make into driveway if we had the funds… (I need a job!)

The grass was largely moss and plants I don’t want. Not grass at all. So I covered an area with weed barrier and used the bags of peagravel we got from my friend. It had a lot of compost mixed in so I’ve used that on the area of weed barrier and I planted some of my festuca glauca plants down the edge.

I’ve used four concrete slabs for walking, laid over some sharp sand and I will bring round some compost to fill some of the areas. But there’s lots of blooming golden rod and valerian which needs digging up. Those are my weeds if I’m honest, as well as the spiky bush at the gate which keeps regrowing. I’ve chopped it three or four times this year and I have to try and eradicate it before it gets too big again.

Still ducking in and out between rain showers, the front garden is a work in progress but I think it will look good after we’ve had a couple of rains. I will try and find some other plants that will look good between the festuca. I saw some amazing heucheras yesterday. I sense a purchase…

Not finished but the garden is always in progress I’m learning!

Another post? For another day?

Making an outdoor space

As it is spitting (Scottish term for light rain, in fact it could be called drizzling) intermittently, and I don’t like getting wet, I have time to write but actually I want to be planting! I purchased a couple of cheap plants in my favourite Woolworths replacement store. I have to plant the grasses too and bulbs. Next spring needs to have an explosion of colour! So there are more bulbs to plant too.

Lunch had been forgotten and I went for a packet to be quick. Bad move when something called Piri-something is left. Yuk! But the outside is calling. The Ivy has sprouted buds and I wasn’t going to cut it when it was sunny and covered in bees, but it’s wet now and I need to discourage bees like the monster that came inside yesterday. Seriously huge, like a bird buzzing furiously, I was scared for us all. I am not a naturephobe, more appreciate such beautiful creatures on the other side of the window.

Can I carry any of the tree chunks I need to pile up? Good question and I have new gloves so maybe I can try? These are coming recommended and I think will be good for all the prickly stuff.

I hope the striped rose survives trunks landing on it…

Still gardening!

Making an outdoor space

It’s lovely out today and I’ve done some of the stuff I had been putting off. I’ve replanted the heuchera that was in the rotten garden box. It is beyond saving that one but I’ve popped the heuchera into the bed I cleared yesterday. I was visited by my friendly robin. Well I would be as I uncovered snails and all sorts.

I’ve also done some digging but hey the sun is now too high and it’s my least favoured job. But I replanted the heuchera and was rewarded by a visit from Red. I buried the bulbs I put in on Saturday with a layer of compost from the rotten box so I’ve mulched the bed I cleared.

I’ve also ordered some super tough garden gloves as I am tired of fishing out thorns in the evening! And the tree boys come tomorrow. There is lots happening, like the snails it will happen, slow and sure.

Shearing laurel…

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I did some more digging but I also did some pruning of the laurel. The brown bin is filling. We have lots to get rid of and the pegs are in to start our shed layout.

Lots of digging is going to be happening apparently, despite my claim that I’m too old? I think the slabs require a lot more digging until the slabs slope away from the house. We have too many flooding the garden experiences to have the slabs slope toward the house…

But it’s hard work and the grass area in front of the bedroom is obviously full of couch grass, so I am very reluctant for that to be our grass area. It’s going to need some taming!

I have the idea of using the gravel I bought randomly the other week to form the path but I am being told by hubby that it also needs digging… lalala I am not listening! It won’t need much now we have a tamper! I picked it and the crowbar up from the post office.

We moved this piece of concrete to make a sloping path from the side gate…

Rearranging stuff!

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I may have overdone it today! I moved things around and set up a border for the flowerbed in the front. I also cut down some spiky bits and stabbed myself in the process; maybe I need to invest in armour?

But it’s not possible to add to the garden waste for collection as it’s full, full, full! And I am trying to avoid further digging cos as I said last time, it wipes me out, fatigue like I have any number of autoimmune conditions all at the same time.

But I moved the little slabs to the front and almost made a circular ring round the bed I have ignored for a while. It needs compost I think and I will use some of the bags I bought on the last trip to the garden shop, which I haven’t visited in a while. I’m not sure whether we checked the ph there but the weeds are rampant…

Trolley was one of my best bargains this year!

I feel a bit more positive after achieving the circle and cutting back the rose which had regrown and I thought I had killed when I dug over that bed. I’ve added a few bulbs (it felt like a lot!) that I hope are not found by squirrels.

Washing off the pea gravel was taking too much water. It will go under the slabs. Hubby got a very heavy crow bar and an even heavier tamper which l had to pick up from the Post Office.

From a distance it looks almost circular?

Still pondering whether the grass can be dug up, ever?

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I’ve started this blog so long ago, and in posting about getting paving slabs delivered in March I don’t believe I am still not walking out of the bedroom onto a patio… Every time I think we are going to move forward, my other half finds a reason for me to have to do another bit of demanding physical work. And I can’t, I truly can’t keep digging. I don’t have the strength. I can prune and weed like it is my only role in life but not digging, I feel like running away and not coming back.

The shed has been decided but it’s not really for me and the planning and building seems to have moved full centre on the plans we have for the foreseeable. Which has put said slabs on hold…

Not sure I can plant these where I was thinking I’d plant them!

In St Albans, I dug a pond but my dad helped me when I was flagging but it was when I was turning 35 and just before my MS diagnosis. I’m now closer to planning my fiftieth than I care to think and dad is mid 80s, planning on golfing his way to 100! I am not giving in but I am facing reality. How do I finish the slabs when lifting one is hard and moving four, one at a time, kills me? I’ve been advised in the past to get a work party organised by offering food and drink? Well that’s also easier said than done when we have barely seen a soul during lockdown. In the past I’ve tried to get charities to help. I must be sounding too well off or something, not so in need as others. I got a freebie from a gardener but he does plants rather than hard surfaces.

So I have so many things currently in progress that it is depressing me so much. I am not as fit as I was in November, the Pandemic saw to that. I have only got sporadic work and it pays for the odd coffee/bag of compost from the garden shop, so I am caught in the cycle of being unemployable due to lack of experience and employment that pays the bare minimum. Which garden rescue tv programme can I apply to, without having to stump up a budget or hack off a leg? (Only joking but my MS is largely too invisible… and I have not been raising millions online for others). My Green-fingered Christmas Selfpity Fairy? Ho hum. Ho hum. Ho hum.

Also the right colour but salvia not standing still…

Raking the slab site but it still slopes the wrong way and the trays for drainage will need a bit more dig out! Eek!

Our shed to be

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It’s been long desired, and when you start laying out bits of the garden furniture to give a sense of actual dimensions, then it starts feeling like the shed will happen. A barbecue is on to feed us this evening – it’s been a gorgeous day so it makes sense – and the little one’s made a salad already. Life in the garden takes on meaning when you can do so many things. I’ve dried bedlinens as well today and they have the scent of being blown dry. Scrumptious!

These are definitely weeds! And beside a bush I can start clearing as it’s privetty and not desired…

The area behind the shed has never been cleared/planted with anything special and so clearing it all will not bring any anxiety. I have promised to try to grow some rose cuttings so that we will be able to grow some of the stripy, and beautifully scented roses, but it’s not something I’ve done before. A bit like my first plantings in the raised beds and greenhouse; all a bit experimental, and not necessarily successful. And it does mean I can remove the shrubs I am not bothered about, which are largely spiky and not wanted! Yay!

Boxes moved to see where the outline might be.

We’ve even discussed taking away a lot of the lawn by the new shed and making it a real planted garden, was I hearing that right? Has my other half offered me a budget? Well no, but he mentioned digging up the grass… and planting in front of the shed! So it could be lovely! I might just have to resite my successfully growing silver birch? I already have to return my herb garden to usefulness. It might mean moving our raised beds but I am not offering to do that yet!

Things are growing despite the weeds! Lambs ears I think they’re called. And part of my purchases at Beth Chatto!

Back in the Garden! On a Bank Holiday no less…

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I have picked up six bucketloads of fallen apples. I have composted three and brown binned the rest. We have received the bill for our next year, to start in October. This includes our three months extra and we are gonna need to continue paying. Lots of talk about the Government sneaking through changes to council responsibilities but hey we are getting used to this by now.

The garden isn’t paying any attention as a week’s neglect has just seen the same old, same old – weed growth and more weed growth alongside a heavy scattering of fully plump apples. I was meant to cut the grass but apple buckets were filled instead.

And discussing the shed has meant a new site has been chosen. Still need to clear the fallen sycamore which was stored for burning. Think it is seasoned after three years? But the garden is being planned! And it is going to mean a lot of work…

Clearing this area by the greenhouse still needs to happen…

Some tidying before the end of summer?

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I don’t like driving up to the house and being confronted by weeds and all things needing trimmed. Even worse when we have been away? So the garden bin was collected this morning and I’ve hacked at the golden rod and spiky buds and remains of valerian. And that’s before I can get out of the front garden.

Hosta flowers. Maybe it’s in a better place.

So the back was full of windfalls… makes the bin heavy and I am bushed. Thankfully I only get to the windfall apples every few days, as the waste of apples makes me sad. We have some brambles so I shall make a crumble or a sponge when I get some energy back.

The house is looking tidyish but I am loathe to muck up the kitchen making sponge… but it’s the one I prefer. Sponge it is!

Random continues…

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I drove a little way away from LGC and bought some gravel. Four bags full. I am now questioning why I do these slightly random things? Not part of the giant scheme of things for sure and not identical to previous freecycled gravel…

All will come good for sure. Maybe it’s the time of the year or the random things that being stuck at home do to you. Maybe I need to go and take the lumps out of the patio slab space? Then we can use the gravel from the herb garden to level it… not sure how, we don’t have a roller?

And today the umbrella was moved so the corner I’ve been eating my lunch is sheltered. More weeding and pruning was needed as bindweed went mad unchecked. Lots of areas being changed for the better and trees are being dug up too.

This spiky plum? tree which has only produced fruit this year is being pruned heavily. The gooseberry bush at its base had dried up so much it literally snapped apart so I could get to the ivy on the wall that was running amok. That’s given me a dry throat so needed pulling for sure. But spikes and dust made me want to stop for lunch. Bon appetite!