My garden in August 2024

Jobs done.

I made a start on the front garden and a few plans.

There was a lot of weeding to be done and I moved quite a few plants. The neighbour came over for a chat, she loves our front garden in spring, but agrees with me that the rest of the year, it really doesn't look that good and is a bit over crowded.

We've decided to build the new bin store on the side of the drive, giving better access to the side of the house.

 The fig tree has been doing well in the pot but it is time to move it to the front of the house which is South facing and Peter has attached some wooden supports to the wall under the window so we can train it to grow nicely.

The box trees don't have enough soil to grow properly. We have some scaffolding planks left over, so we will be removing the shrubs and building a long, large wooden box and filling it with soil from the back garden (killing two birds with one stone) and replanting the box trees, eventually they will cover the planks as they grow.

At the moment we can only access the house down one side as we've been storing all the spare material out of sight, most of this wood is being used to build a compost bin and a cold frame.

This is the area where we will be building the cold frame and compost bins. The Bay tree has been moved. 

Once we've built the new compost bin, we can level this area off and use this soil in the front garden and reconfigure the path here.

The new path will run where the fir tree is.

I've moved the raspberry canes and the blueberry plant that wasn't growing and strung some fairy lights onto the raised beds

We've looked at different types of paving and I really want to move away from symmetrical lines and paving slabs, persuading my husband to use a mixture of bricks, rocks and gravel is going to be harder, but he has agreed that he likes the disorder of the garden of the garden in Turkey where we stayed on our holiday.

I think a visit to some antique/junk shops maybe in order for some random pots, Belfast sinks will be on my list next. I've been cultivating succulents and I love the idea of having them placed in random containers around the garden and on the patio.

Creating the perfect outdoor space has been important to me since we returned from living abroad. I miss the outdoor life.

The garden hasn't faired too well in our absence with the lack of rain, but it's salvageable and we're getting on with the next couple of jobs.

I've rearranged under the covered area as the chair pod was getting wet and blowing round in the wind. I doubt we'll be having both sets of doors open for a while. It's nice to have somewhere to dry the washing in the winter.

I've moved the succulents back under cover as they were starting to get too wet and not liking it.

The fig tree has been moved to the front of the house.

Things have started moving with the next part of the garden plans. the compost bin, the herb garden, the hedge in the front garden and the new path, but I'll save those for Septembers posts.