Tweet
Last year around late spring / early summer, the layout for my back yard was like this....
To be honest at that stage it wasn't too bad, but as the season moved on it became a sprawling mass, and there was simply no room for me.
Where the patio furniture was, is the same place as the socket for they airer. This meant I could sit outside or dry my washing, but not both. I decided this year would be different. I also found that traditional veg was costing me more to grow than to buy, so I figured why not buy the standard cheap stuff, and grow other stuff instead. There were other problems too. The maintenance was too high for me to keep up with, and I didn't want to be looking at netting and protective measure whilst relaxing in the garden. Yes, I wanted to grow food - but not at the expense of having a nice place to sit, have a BBQ and get all the other fun and function aside from crop production. I decided I needed a whole new format and different objectives next time round.
When I started this year, it was a disaster zone of abandoned pots and general detritus, and not looking very appealing at all.
I kind of knew what I wanted to try and achieve, but wasn't sure if I could actually create it.
I wanted ...
The image I had in mind was something along these lines.
It's all well and good having a dream, but making it a reality isn't always plain sailing. It's taken me till now to get a base template for this years layout, and it does differ somewhat from the original plans, for example moving a couple of trees up into the veg area, and having to incorporate a number of late night drunken internet purchases, but the overall concept is there and actually looks like it might work out better than originally planned.
There will still be more shuffling and shifting as time goes on, and I still need to engineer more space for other plants that are currently growing on windowsills indoors, or that I haven't received or sown yet. That said I am happy that my garden is going to be a nicer place to relax in this year, will be less of a time burden through the season, and will still give me lots of yummy goodies to munch on. Even now at the beginning of March, the garden feels a lot more inviting than it did last year, and there will be a wider diversity of plants, visual interest, and a whole raft of culinary oddities as a reward for my efforts.
There's still an enormous amount of work to be done, but I now feel like I'm finally making visible advances towards acheiving what I wanted. For too long I've been working on it, but not having much to show for it. From that perspective I now feel like I'm starting to turn the corner.
Here's the template in place as it stands today.
To be honest at that stage it wasn't too bad, but as the season moved on it became a sprawling mass, and there was simply no room for me.
Where the patio furniture was, is the same place as the socket for they airer. This meant I could sit outside or dry my washing, but not both. I decided this year would be different. I also found that traditional veg was costing me more to grow than to buy, so I figured why not buy the standard cheap stuff, and grow other stuff instead. There were other problems too. The maintenance was too high for me to keep up with, and I didn't want to be looking at netting and protective measure whilst relaxing in the garden. Yes, I wanted to grow food - but not at the expense of having a nice place to sit, have a BBQ and get all the other fun and function aside from crop production. I decided I needed a whole new format and different objectives next time round.
When I started this year, it was a disaster zone of abandoned pots and general detritus, and not looking very appealing at all.
I kind of knew what I wanted to try and achieve, but wasn't sure if I could actually create it.
I wanted ...
- a little more space round the seating
- more perennials and bushes
- something lower maintenance
- space to peg out the laundry and still enjoy the garden
- to move away from traditional veg
The image I had in mind was something along these lines.
It's all well and good having a dream, but making it a reality isn't always plain sailing. It's taken me till now to get a base template for this years layout, and it does differ somewhat from the original plans, for example moving a couple of trees up into the veg area, and having to incorporate a number of late night drunken internet purchases, but the overall concept is there and actually looks like it might work out better than originally planned.
There will still be more shuffling and shifting as time goes on, and I still need to engineer more space for other plants that are currently growing on windowsills indoors, or that I haven't received or sown yet. That said I am happy that my garden is going to be a nicer place to relax in this year, will be less of a time burden through the season, and will still give me lots of yummy goodies to munch on. Even now at the beginning of March, the garden feels a lot more inviting than it did last year, and there will be a wider diversity of plants, visual interest, and a whole raft of culinary oddities as a reward for my efforts.
There's still an enormous amount of work to be done, but I now feel like I'm finally making visible advances towards acheiving what I wanted. For too long I've been working on it, but not having much to show for it. From that perspective I now feel like I'm starting to turn the corner.
Here's the template in place as it stands today.
Not quite sure how I'm going to create space for the rest of the plants yet though ...
Comment