Garden - Part 3

The last job that we had to do - not just on the garden - but the whole house, was a tiny patch of land in the back garden. Since 2009, the most that has ever been done to this piece of garden is that the path has been brushed. Unseen (apart from through my kitchen window) and so, we adopted a kind of 'out of sight, out of mind' mentality about it. Overgrown, straggly, and just an eyesore. I forgot to take a proper 'before' picture of it, but this was it about three weeks ago, when we first started work on it. We'd cleared a fair bit and put the log roll fencing up to keep the bark from spilling onto the path.

Here goes...

Mr G wanted to level the soil out after digging up as many weeds as he could, but there was just no way that was happening. So I had a think, and said that if we were putting weed control down and then bark, it wouldn't really need to be level, and that the levelling out could be done with the bark itself. This worked out fine. The old rickety fence between us and next door, which our neighbour's father put up years ago and he's a bit sentimental about, is now covered with a section of heather screening. We bought two little mirrored tea light holders in the shape of bird cages, these were from Poundworld. A lovely little wall mounted planter from B&M. We cut the pretty pink tree right back before it started to blossom, and put clear fairy lights in, so it looks really pretty at night. Three small mosaic solar lights from Morrisons, which we put in between the potted plants on the bark. A couple of hanging plaques on the wall under the window. Two solar miners lamps hang in the tree too. And my absolute favourite bargain buy, a garden wine bottle and glass holder, which I bought in the Clearance section of Avon for a fiver. It looks so pretty there now, and just as I finally get my little piece of peace and quiet, what happens? Rain.

The view on approach

Ingenuious!

It really looks so pretty up there now, and I can see it becoming a bit of a haven in the summer, as I evade children. Warm summer evening, Kindle, bottle of wine, bag of crisps. They'll never think of looking there, will they?

The shed pub is also tidy and ready for tomorrow evening. Next week hopefully, we should finally have power and electric lighting in there (and internet!) and there are only two jobs left to do. Put the safety flooring down for the dartboard and put the pub sign up outside the shed. Mr G has acquired a long piece of old bannister rail from a friend which will hopefully do as the pole, but we're just stuck at the moment on the best way to erect it, the positioning, and most importantly, the height. It needs to be proportional to the height of the building, which isn't 'pub' sized. Unfortunately.

Every year I'm really proud of my garden and the hard work we put into it, but I think that this year it's the best it's ever looked, everything seems to be spot on. And the lovely weather we've had means that it's been summer ready in record time. I know that usually, around my birthday I'm flapping, trying to get it ready, but this year, it seemed to flow nicely.

And now today, I will bake, bake, bake for tomorrow, it is Eurovision. Oh yes...