Farewell Rubble, Hello Garden!

I am very excited to announce that the concrete is gone and the rubble is no more!

It has taken a good few weekends work, 6 trailer laden trips to our local tip and 4 to a friend who was in need for an upcoming project  (which is lucky as the tip officials were starting to get a bit fed up of our faces!). But finally we are free from the oppressing piles of broken concrete that have blighted our outdoor sanctuary for the past couple of months – I seriously had no idea just how much rubble would emerge from what I thought was a relatively small patch of concrete.

Here is the before photograph:

Stage One

Originally I held out the hope that once the slabs had been pulled up it would simply be a matter of delicately sweeping the remnants of a thin layer of cement into sacks, and skipping up to the tip before heading off for an afternoon at the garden centre, filling our trolley with a wonderful riot of prettiness, colour and scent… I learnt my lesson pretty soon! BUT that is not to say I was disappointed with the project, in fact I think I may have enjoyed it more the way it turned out, as without all the work I do not think that there would have been the same level of satisfaction with the outcome.

Basically, after raising all the slabs we found a thick layer of cement mixed with various hardcore and rubbish – you can get an idea in the picture below. We did not hire any special tools for the job so made do with hammers, chisels and good ol’ muscle power (I did not realise I had much of that until we got going!).

Stage Two.

The plan is to make the most of the space by creating a cottage garden, with home grown vegetables, herbs and closely packed informal flower beds.

Stage Three.

Eventually we were left with this, I think it makes the space look much bigger:

Stage Four.

Finally it was time for that much dreamt of trip to the garden centre. We choose Manor Nursery in Angmering, it’s a family run centre with a lovely feel about it and a great choice of plants.

And now…

There is a space of about 3 months inbetween the above two shots; various plants were added at each stage, and we are already enjoying the benefits of our courgette plants and have baby tomatoes and runner beans on their way too! The flowers from Manor Nursery have also been supplemented by a birthday trip to the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show last weekend (post to follow).

The current layout is actually part of a temporary planting scheme; at a later date we plan to get rid of that path down the middle and create a lovely winding walkway down to the bottom of the garden. We will also tidy up the patio, perhaps even making it a little smaller. But for now we have a bright and colourful space which we can enjoy being in – garden furniture is the next stage!

All in all this has been a very satisfying project, plus I am feeling quite a bit stronger after all the hammering so there have been health benefits too! Now its time to move onto the front garden, we are making quite a few interesting discoveries there…

P.S.

Whilst hammering and digging I have, in my ever-present over active imagination, been holding out the hope of finding some treasure. I don’t mean a hoard of Roman coins (though I would not say no to this discovery!), I mean simpler treasures such as old bottles, Victorian crockery and various odds and ends which have been mislaid over the past 113 years since Number Fourteen was built. Well, treasure was found (of the simpler kind) and I have a little pile which I intend to sort and photograph for a future post here.

…♥…

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• A Quick Word on Rubble. (projectfourteen.wordpress.com)
• The Birds. (projectfourteen.wordpress.com)