If you’re a regular follower of this blog, you’ll have heard me mention our grand garden plans over and over. From the initial planning stages through to it taking priority on our ‘house next steps’ list it’s been a bit of a wishlist project since the first time we set eyes on the place. And with an expanding family and a toddler who loves to run wild, it’s this year that it became a real focus for us.
It may seem like an insignificant thing to focus on but, since moving in to our home three and a half years ago, we’ve used our back garden a mere handful of times. It’s always been full of brambles, half fenced and frankly, a bit of a death trap. When we bought the house, you couldn’t see any of the garden we currently have; it was hidden in a jungle of overgrown trees and shrubs. Countless days of work allowed us to fight it back to something half usable, only for us to spend last summer trashing it with building work. Eventually, having put in a wall of bi-fold doors only to stare at our neighbours garden and the wasteland we owned, it was time to do something about it.
I’m incredibly excited to share with you some photos of our garden that we took this week. We managed to convince Dave that the level of work required was far greater than he could manage with the odd Sunday and we got people in for help. Akin to ‘Groundforce’, they appeared and within a day had stripped out the majority of shrubs and growth giving us the ability to see just how big a space we had. The following week we had a fully fenced garden; not only dog and toddler proof but tall enough to stop us sharing every moment with our next door neighbours ongoing commentary (well intentioned but oh so frustrating!). A patio appeared, giving us a connection between our new living space and the garden for those summer days when we’ll pull back the bi-fold wall. After all that time we could finally visualise what it would be like.
Then the snow came. And again. Followed by weeks of rain leaving us staring out at a tantalisingly close to finished garden. Until this week.
This week the turf has gone down, the messy bits have been tidied, the fence has been finished. Where we once had a pile of ‘garden bits’ we’ve now got a sheltered compound that hides the mess from garden-dwelling eyes. It’s the first time in years that we’ve been in a position to actually say ‘this is it’.
That’s not to say that we’re completely finished by any means; we’ve got a outhouse door to replace and paint, we’ve got a stone planter that’s in desperate need of some plants, that messy area still needs sorting. I’ve spent hours looking at sites like Fishpools for garden furniture inspiration ready to create perfect nooks for summer day lazing (with two kids… as if!). But, as I sit typing this I can finally appreciate the hours of hard work that it’s taken to get us here, to a place where we have the perfect family garden that suits our ever-expanding little tribe. I can’t wait to share our adventures in it with you.
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