The Garden in January

Well there's no plants to admire yet, but you can see all the work I've had done so far. This is what the garden looked like back in March when I moved in, and today's photos show what it's looking like now ... rather bare!

For the patio I used sawn Indian sandstone, rather than the more common riven sandstone, so it is completely level making it much safer for me to walk on. It still has to be sealed, but that can't happen for at least a couple of months as the salts need to leach out of the stone and then we need warmer, drier days before it can be done.

The little out-building with the white door is where the gas boiler is located and on the wall below the kitchen window is the external tap. This is where I'll have a couple of large water butts as well, the sort where you can plant some trailing flowers in a planting pocket on the top. 

 

The path off the patio (see photo above) is the way to the steps that lead down to the stream. There's a slight slope there, which I still find difficult to walk on, but I'm sure I'll get used to it in time.

There were four trees in the garden when I moved in but I had them removed as they were way too big for this garden and were planted too close to the building for comfort. I don't have any plans to replace them with trees planted in the soil as a covenant on the bungalow restricts the planting of trees and very large shrubs within a certain distance of the stream. If I do decide I'd like a tree I will probably go for a compact ornamental tree grown in a large container on the patio. I haven't decided yet though.

For the time being, the patio furniture has to stay on the lawn so it doesn't mark the sandstone before it has been sealed. I think I'll eventually need to replace the current small patio set for something more in keeping with the available space, as the current set is going to look very lost on that huge patio!

This year I plan to plant a whole load of cosmos in the flower bed that's been rotavated and filled with mushroom compost (top right of the photo below). In the longer term, the shape of the lawn and that flower bed will be redesigned - think interlocking curves rather than straight lines - and there will also be some planting around the edge of the patio as well.

In the far corner (in the second photo below, by my neighbour's greenhouse) I'm thinking of planting some roses, bushes not climbers.

I hope you enjoyed the tour!