Hanging baskets: not just for nannas, yo

Scarlett watering hanging basketsI’ve avoided hanging baskets until now in my life, as I, yes, had the recently realised misconception that they are for nannas. And granddads, let’s not be sexist.

Following our harrowing Homebase trip, we ordered some brackets from t’internet and then drilled big holes into our house to make it all pretty like.

In the meantime, you can see that Scarlett dedicated herself ostensibly to keeping them alive (see exhibit A), which was negated by the armfuls of pink blooms she wandered inside to bin the following day.

Continue reading

Pretty, colourful flowers

All the flowersWe visited Homebase last week, a harrowing trip where we lost Scarlett for a full five minutes and found her in the outdoor bit, presumably returning to a plaster of Paris sheep that had taken her fancy. I actually ran round with a full trolley balanced with flowers without thinking to just abandon it.  Great cardio.

We managed to gather ourselves enough to pay for our purchases: lots of flowers for the long planter in the back garden, and two hanging baskets which were on offer, presumably because Britain is not likely to see the sun again this decade.

Continue reading

I got sunshine

Sunflower 1…on a cloudy day.

That’s what I think when I look at the sunflowers in our flower bed, anyway.  Scarlett was sent home with a tiny green shoot in a flowerpot for Mothers’ Day, back in March.  And yes, I did cry.  A couple of my friends (you know who you are) think it’s hilarious that I cry whenever nursery give me anything Scarlett’s made, painted or planted, but it makes me so happy!  I digress.

So, we left it in its little pot and set it on the kitchen table near the window, where it started to grow.  I’ve never been very good with plants, but I tried my very best with this one.  You know, because my then 12 month old daughter planted it with her own fair hands (with help, granted) and such. Continue reading

Garden furniture

To go with our new decking and flowers, we bought some garden furniture so we can fully enjoy these sunny days.

Garden furniture

It’s a six-person set, but to squeeze six people round it on the decking, even sideways, would involve someone being very squashed next to the fence and someone at the other end of the table teetering on the edge of falling into the grass.  That’s why we’ve decided to have it as a large four-seater, and kept the other two chairs for the patio area by the French doors.

Two chairs

We just need a table to go with them – we’ve kept the old one for now but it’s kind of had its day.  You may also notice some odd slabs in this picture, this is because Barry’s taken the slabs across to make the patio area bigger, but now they’re a bit obvious.  They’ll weather (I’m reliably being told by Barry, who’s reading over my shoulder)!

Garden furniture 1

The furniture’s a set called Sienna from Homebase, black metal with a purple parasol (hence the purple flowers).  We haven’t actually had the parasol up yet, what with the sun being so fickle, but I can assure you, it does look pretty good – we saw it in store.

Check out the photo here for our fabulous dual coloured fence (it hasn’t been finished yet).

Flora

20130715-093819.jpg

Here’s Barry hard at work, planting some flowers. My gardening knowledge is next to zilch, so we went for pretty ones. I was in charge of the selection.

I’ve included a little gallery of the flowers we chose, they’re all white and pinky-purple, because everything we have at the minute is pink and white because of our lovely daughter!

The purples go with the garden furniture I haven’t shown you yet.

The flowers are: Nemesia; Garden Pink “Brilliant Star”; Gerbera; Cockscomb “Caracas” (who comes up with these?); Ornamental Sage. Then there’s the white ones near the middle, either side of the sage, which I have no idea what they’re called. I have a strong feeling they begin with G. Geranium? Gardenia? You tell me!

Edited: Chrysanthemums! They’re chrysanthemums!

 

Gardening in the sunshine

20130715-093551.jpg

I’m a bad, bad blogger. My teeny tiny daughter is taking all my time and my housework and blog are bearing the brunt! Procrastination is key, and the blog is coming first today.

I have a photo from a few weeks ago, when it was still wet, of the garden without the huge mound of dirt.  The skip was eventually collected four weeks late.

20130715-093636.jpg

Since the decking was put in, Barry has stained it, and painted half of the fence; there’s still one side to do.  We’ve also dropped the manhole cover and are encouraging grass to grow over it so we don’t have a big, unsightly hole in the garden any more.

It’s amazing how much better the garden looks in the sunshine!

20130715-093649.jpg

We’ve been using the decking a lot over the last week or so, when temperatures have been nearly 30 degrees, so getting it put in this May was excellent timing (for my maternity leave as well!).

Just getting some flowers for the raised bed, watch this space…

Decking day deux

Decking 6We’re pretty much done with the decking already!  The men started early, about 7.30, and started putting the decking boards onto the frame they’d built the day before.  They also built the path back up so we didn’t fall into a deep, dark hole taking the bin out.  That would have been inconvenient.

The skip that was supposed to arrive between 10am and 12pm came at around 5pm after the gents had already gone home, so they’re coming back on Saturday morning to get rid of the mound of dirt in the back garden.  I did try to shame the man delivering the skip but he just asked us for money.  We didn’t give him it.

Decking 7The landscape guys also built a raised flowerbed at the bottom of the garden, as per Barry’s masterplan, which looks great; we just need to decide what to put in it.

After the mud has been cleared away, we need to get some grass seed stat and dig up those nasty weeds that blight our grass.

Decking 8

We’re also planning on getting a new shed, putting a step in between the two levels for Scarlett’s tiny legs and covering the manhole cover in some way.  Then we would like to put up higher fence panels next to the decking, as we can currently see right over into next door’s garden now, and that’s just not polite.  Then we’re going to stain the decking and fence so everything matches.  I quite like the idea of it being a dark stain, but we’ll have to go shopping and see.

Then we need some nice garden furniture and Barry’s loving the idea of a fire pit.

After that (but way in the future), I’d like to change the paving slabs we have for nice ones instead of the utilitarian grey concrete ones that the house builders put in.  We’ll need almost 40, so it won’t be cheap!

I’ll put up some more photos once the mud mound has disappeared, but I’m really happy with this result!  Just hope we get a summer to go with it…

So, what do you think?  Quick poll: have you ever painted one side of your fence (and not the neighbour’s side)?

A deck above

Decking 1Day one of the decking – the frame is in, hurray!  I wasn’t sure the poor men would come this morning because it was raining so hard, but turn up they did, and worked through until the sun shone later this afternoon.

I took a couple of surreptitious photos when they nipped back to the van (I thought they might feel judged if I did it while they were working!), hence the photos through the door.

They dug out a lot of mud and rubble, much more than they’d thought initially (a skip is winging its way to us tomorrow).

Decking 2Then they started on the two-level frame.  Because it was raining so hard, the grass section of our garden is now a muddy mess, but never mind!  It wasn’t exactly manicured beforehand, but hopefully we can sort it out for summer.  If it ever comes.

One of the paving slabs next to the decking is now about to collapse, so it needs building back up underneath, which apparently they’ll do tomorrow, along with putting the boards on presumably, but don’t know how long that takes.

 

Decking 3Decking 4

Decking 5

 

 

Deck ahoy!

I’m a terrible blogger at the moment, my little baby is taking all my time, but I don’t mind!  We’ve added a couple of bits to the nursery which I need to photograph, and in the meantime, Barry’s organised someone to do the decking!  Finally!

I mentioned the decking plans back in June, and the same plans apply, only instead of Barry doing it, we have a man who can.  It turns out that he was £100 more than if we just bought the bits ourselves, and that is £100 well spent.  The gentleman is coming for two days this week, and then we can laze in the summer mizzle.

photo(1)This is the view from our back door at the moment, kind of uninspiring.  The dandelions are the only flash of colour.  Barry tore the shed down this weekend – the bits are being collected for firewood and the paving slabs keeping it straight have gone on (what else?) eBay!

We’re having decking down the right hand side, extending the patio to the left, and keeping some grass.  I want to change the drab paving slabs for something nicer, but that may have to wait.  The fence also needs to be a bit higher on the right hand side, otherwise we’d be sunbathing looking over at our neighbours below us, a little intrusive!  We’re also going to stain everything dark.

I think – I hope – everything is going to look fabulous!

Dreaming of decking

Despite the terrible weather, we have been talking about decking recently.  We’ve decided it’s not something we can afford to do this year – we’d rather get the house into some semblance of painted perfection first, especially the rooms we use the most, but it doesn’t stop us planning!

Barry has so very much time on his hands, that he’s put the measurements into a fancy schmancy computer programme and come up with an actual plan.

This is what it looks like at the moment (not much!)…

Not a lot going on, and the slabs that we do have are grey and drab and boring.  Now this is the plan for the decking (although it may go to three stages instead of two)…

For those of you interested in such things as elevation, this is below.  This is why we can’t just have one level of decking, because we’d be towering over the neighbours!  Although it might be good to see what they’re having for tea…

And finally!  This is how Barry envisages the finished garden.  I was assured there would be a fire pit in there somewhere as well.  And the slabs can go and be replaced by beautiful ones.  And the sun can come out.