Taming The Wasteland: Look How Far I've Come

 On the back of viewing an exquisitely styled open house, further up our street, and coming home to feel that my place is a bit dowdy, dark and dumpy, I decided to look back on how far I have come with my garden.

I give you: The Wasteland then:

 

An in between shot...

And now:

 Although there are less weeds at the moment :-)

My terraces a few years back and then one taken last week....

 

The bank, down from the patio, just after I'd plugged in a whole lot of little cuttings. 

 

 

It took a few years but now........

 

 

 

I planted some Full Moon  convolvulus in the first year...

 

 

Here it is now...

 

 

And the other side of the staircase then

and now

Still a bit of work to do here :-)

The next step is to plan out the bottom half of the garden which is pretty bare at the moment...

But hey! I think I can pat myself on the back.

I comfort myself that although the house up the road was styled beautifully and had a great view....its back garden was rubbish 😂

Until next time!

Taming The Wasteland

When I bought my beloved house, and I do mean beloved, my one reservation was the garden. And I use the term loosely.

I mean.... it is more of a wasteland....

You see I'm on a slope and the garden drops off at an alarming rate. No-one seems to have done anything with the space except let gum trees grow. And weeds.

And as you can see, the fences were not overly secure either.....

I had one way down to the shed at the lower level, exiting onto the street below.

Now, the handrail was pretty indeed. But the stairs were dodgy.. These few look ok but...generally the tree roots were causing havoc with any constant level.

When I went off to the UK in September I listened with interest to the reports of storms and blackouts in my home town. I was pretty relaxed until I received this image.

One of my gracious gums had given up the ghost and sighed out of life across my staircase.

Sadly, this is what remained of my staircase:

Not pretty, or safe! So I started the old insurance procedure around recovering for damages caused by fallen trees. Getting someone to quote was a nightmare but finally a very nice man came and gave me several options. In the end, this is the one I went with:

I've got to say it's a massive improvement. Still got a bit of planting etc to do but I am excited....

Hopefully we can look to taming this wasteland next year....

Wish me luck.

Garden Makeover Part 3

So now most of the major makeover stuff is done, we are concentrating on a bit of honest to goodness gardening. Naturally, there is a modicum of trial and error involved.

This was the original plant-up.
Now there is a slight bone of contention associated with all this. Lately, I have mentioned to Himself that, in the interests of marital harmony, we need to do more things together. We need common projects. He seemed to acknowledge that this would be a good thing so in the spirit of this, I asked if we could go to the nursery the following weekend and choose some plants for the new garden. I got a vague agreement and went off to church on the Sunday, excited to know that we would be browsing plant sales together afterwards.
Wrong.
I got back to find him potting up plants on the back verandah with multiple trays of veggies and my personal least favoutite garden flower, the marigold, ready to be installed.

I went ballistic.

He was completely stunned. He completely failed to understand why I was upset.  After all, he had certainly considered my interests at the nursery when he had mentioned to the shop man that I liked flowers. He had also talked to the shop man about whether I would like the planters he had chosen. He was allowed to bring them back if I didn't like them however; I'm not sure planting them up before hand was a good way to ensure they were easily returnable.

We planted the cursed marigolds and some sad looking petunias, but several weeks later they had not made any progress at all and so this weekend I ripped some of them out and planted up some perennials instead!

Look how well the tomatoes are doing up the back there!

 Himself has put some gravel on the slope down.

Can you see actual tomatoes on them thar vines???

Himself actually outdid himself with this application of gravel and bed edging last weekend.

So that's as far as we've got. It's keeping us busy though and seriously, has gone a long way to re-cementing our relationship. Which is a good thing.....  

I'm Digging a Ditch Where Madness Lives

Sometimes when things are at their darkest a little ray of sunshine beaks through.

Not that our darkness can even cast a shadow on the circumstances of many people in this world; we are so blessed really. Still, any regular reader of this blog will be well aware of the limitless dysfunction of this family (and these are just a few examples) and I am sure our builders would attest to the same.

This past week has been yet another litany of stress:
Himself's business (why oh why did I get involved? Oh yes, because they needed someone who would remember to pay the bills); mounting unfinished jobs at work which were meant to be completed during the holidays (wooooosh....that was the deadlines passing); the builders (so where do you want this down pipe?); No 1 Son, here for a short spell which has extended to months (not that we mind except that we know he is simply avoiding things); the BA's approaching 18th birthday with attendant monster party (what was I thinking????); a nasty letter from the taxman...
So it was with a delight bordering on rapture that I came home to this tonight.

Why, you ask me? Well, it seems that both my stepsons have worked together, for the best part of a day, to dig trenches in unforgiving clay soil, so that the storm water may be connected up tomorrow ready for the paving to recommence on Thursday. They also purchased the required PVC pipe and assorted joining pieces.
Unsolicited.
Without supervision!
For no monetary reward.
And without killing each other.

Just when you think they are beyond hope....... <3 p="">
Here's the finished pergola awaiting the paving.

When that is done I get to pick up the new outdoor setting, hopefully before May 11th when the BA has her birthday party............

I mean, why do it with time to spare when you can have the enervating experience of biting your fingernails right up until the last moment?

What Happened Next In The Garden

Ugh. Dragged myself home from work at 11.30pm today. It was the first day back, sans pupils, so there has been LOTS of organising to do: updating registers, meeting new teachers and giving them the brief on their 'special' kids...In the middle of it all I was fielding calls from carpenters and trying to track down my pool man...yes, the Backyard Blitz continues.

So last time I checked in we had a new retaining wall right? But I hinted at a dark pile of something which was about to cause me grief.........

Well, there it is. Bottom left, looming large. Actually, it doesn't even look that bad here! It was lulling me into a false sense of security....

You see, the next two jobs on the horizon were:

a) laying a small concrete slab at one end of the garden to take the pool equipment

around about where that patch of dubious paving lies......

 and b) removing the old solar heating matting from the roof

(and disposing of it whilst we had still had a skip) to avoid paying the pool man to do it.

There was some discussion over the division of labour. During a food and wine fuelled dinner, No1 and No 2 Sons, with encouragement from me, assured us that they could lay that tiny little, no'count slab in no time, with no problems. Piece of cake.

I was equally sure that stripping the solar matting off the roof would be a doddle.

They started in a frenzy of enthusiasm the next day. Well, the next afternoon. They don't get up until 4pm. They might melt in the sunlight, after all........
They pegged out the space we thought we'd need.

Oh and look where they threw the old pavers......yes, onto my rapidly growing 'dark pile'. Nevertheless, they raced down to Bunnings and bought 10 bags of pre-mix cement, having calculated that 1.5m x 2.4m x 0.15m equalled.....well, 10 bags of premix anyway.....

And then everything stopped. I think it got too hot. Or maybe there was some confusion about where the corner of the pergola was going to go and whether or not we wanted to cement over the marked gas and electricity lines....

Whatever, the hold up, a week went past. There was more discussion and a realisation that the slab would need to be longer. Then No2 Son dug up an IP (inspection point...basically, a manhole cover over a bit of pipe), right near the end of the slab, but right where we needed to extend it to. More discussion and planning.



Meanwhile, I had been on the roof....

And in the space of two days, I had cleared that sucker.

And now I am falling asleep, so I will continue the story tomorrow......

Just Another Brick In The Wall

So, when we last spoke, I had been clearing the back garden ready for the builders. Note the thickness of the stem of this ivy. That is some serious gardening neglect you are looking at there.

There was also a bit of paver lifting to do as we decommissioned the automatic irrigation system. The control box was set into the paving precisely where the new wall was planned to go.  Check the lean on the pier at right there....

 The bobcats did their job.

That would be a hole.

This is how the bobcat got into our backyard.

And we thought there would be a demure ramp like structure. Pfffft.

Here are the builder/s bringing in the RSJs for the uprights.

And here they are, all in place waiting for their sleepers.

I hope you are noticing the state of our backyard in the interim?????????

Next day, the sleepers arrived. Unfortunately the automatic 'lifter' could not access our steep garden so the lads had to heft them down the stairs, one by one. 100kg each. 38C.

 

I knew there was a reason I went to University.

 Here, the first sleepers slip into place.

By the end of the day...

Now here is a challenge. Spot the difference between this picture....

And this one....

And the answer is.....significantly less dirt over the lower level (oh and they had started the return on the stairs). They used the dirt to backfill behind the new wall. Sadly for any future gardening plans, it was depressingly white.

So here is the finished wall. I'm afraid the overall effect is not all that pretty...yet. But what I want you to focus on is that rather dark pile in the top left hand corner of this last photo. That one was going to come back to bite me in the coming days.