When I moved into this house some 17 years ago, the garden was waist-height overgrown and it was only on the second viewing I actually realised there was a greenhouse…. everything was so neglected. I fell in love with the house and garden and its potential straight away… and have loved living here ever since! It took years to get both the house and garden back into some semblance of order and the garden, which is long and quite narrow, was somewhere I always wanted to spend time. With a toddler and a three year old, the garden was initially very much designed around their needs… somewhere to play and explore. Although I always had bird feeders and a bird table, I had little else specifically to attract wildlife. As the kids got older, we went through tree houses, trampolines, goal posts and various other child-related additions. For many years, the garden has been split in two…. ‘my’ area with planting and the pond etc and then the far end, which has been grass and not a lot else, separated by my hen run in the middle.
My ‘kids’ are now grown up and spend virtually no time in the garden…. I decided it was time for a re-design!
This week, I have had a local company working in the garden to open up this somewhat un-used space and create a new area for me to work with over the year. My hens have been moved up to the far end of the garden and the space has been opened up and fenced. …. oh my goodness! I had not quite appreciated what a huge space I had until it was all cleared and fenced!
I think it is easy to stop seeing things when you look at them all the time… this part of the garden had always been the grass area (or mud area this winter!) where I let the hens scratch around, had a bonfire, piles trimmings etc and I needed to look at it with new eyes!
Doing this work seems to have doubled the size of my garden and given me a great new space in which to work in the coming months… all very exciting. I know it all looks a mess at the moment, but I love having photos of the ‘before’ as it makes it all the more meaningful, when you have the ‘after’ ones. It is so easy to forget what a space was like before you started working with it. I will share this year’s journey of development with you over the coming months…. all very exciting… if it would just stop raining, may be I could make a start!
The BEFORE…..
The ‘AFTER’… ready to start new garden developments!…..
This garden work had been delayed after the barn owls started visiting. I did not want to risk upsetting them at all. When I had gone 4 days with no sign of them, I went ahead with the work. The pair were never around during the day so I did not feel this work would affect them at all. The box is on the very edge of the garden facing outwards onto the fields, so not actually ‘in’ the garden space as such.
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