Back Garden - Phase 1 Completed Yahoooooooo!

After several weekends of hard graft, P and I have finally finished the basic design of our garden. I can't tell you how happy (and tired) we are. In between, we even managed to squeeze in a tw0-week holiday back to the Small Island to see my parents and Oz to visit P's family. Multi-taskers extraordinaires or wot. :-)

From our kitchen, this is how the garden looks now:

And a close up of the planted areas (click on the photo to enlarge it):

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all the plants will take and that in a month's time, we'll have much lusher beds. We put in a combination of climbers, shrubs and bedding plants including jasmine, honeysuckle, a rose bush and a peony. We then covered the soil with bark as that minimises weeds and also adds nutrients as it breaks down over time.

To add interest, we also planted up a few pots which we put in front of the shed and on the patio. And for the rest of the summer, we can sit back, have a few BBQs and just enjoy the fruits of our hard work.

Here's Georgia Rose showing us how to chill out in the sun:

We haven't done any work close to the house as we may put on a conservatory next year. If we do that, the patio will extend further out into the garden and we will lose some lawn space. No point digging out beds only to have to move everything in 12 months again.

Have a lovely long Royal Wedding weekend!

Back Garden - Phase 1.3

P and I are both doggone bone weary...but it's all worth it because we finished painting the shed today!! I cannot tell you how happy I am that we have done the bulk of the work in the garden. In three weekends, we have completed three major projects. We first paved behind the shed, then last Saturday we dug out the planting beds. Now, look at the fruits of this afternoon's labour!

The shed is painted in Farrow and Ball's (some say it's paint for posh people :-)) Light Blue 22. The trim i.e. roof and windows are done in Wimborne White.


P also picked up the stepping stones for our garden path this morning. We haven't set them in the ground yet but we have laid them out to get an idea of what it will look like. We also want to weather them as they are still brand new and very shiny! Once they are set, we can then focus on the fun part of gardening i.e. planting!


I know that I am now officially middle-aged as I check the weather every single day to make sure I can work in the garden! So sad, but I guess it happens to the best of us.

Tomorrow, we are going with our friends to a special garden to get ideas. Apparently, their nursery also sells some very good quality plants so we may buy one or two. I can't wait to go on holiday soon to get away from all this hard work!