Our New Garden

I took these photos the week before we moved in. I wanted a series of before pictures to contrast with the completed garden at a later stage. I will be able to link to them as I love the makeover garden photos or TV programs that do that.
The first photo is the view from the backdoor through the french doors. They open out onto the decking area, complete with ships balustrade around three parts of the decking (the third part is on the left hand side not visible in the photo).
It drops down onto the paving slabs besides the house and is bordered by a long rectangular raised bed that had some very old woody shrubs, and some smaller dog eared ones. Also visible is the Swing/Slide/Decking frame for the kids that was left behind, the compost bin, and the Shed/Temporary Structure.

A large concrete path goes along one edge of the garden to the shed at the back of the garden. This was originally designed for a heavy motorbike to be led up the garden path for storage. This has a lot of tubs on it at the moment. A thin green line growing between the left hand fence and the pathway. This may be broken up one day, but that is a job for the future. I will have to grow on it to start instead of in it.

From the side view they had their bins stored by the raised decking against a fence. There is the houses main down pipe from the roofs guttering. Maybe my water butts that are by the shed can be connected to this? Water conservation will be a key issue in this garden as it is so hot. Yesterday it was about twenty five degrees centigrade. It has not rained for over two weeks so everything is drying out.
The green tub planter had three Strawberry plants left over from the previous owners. Behind the raised bed area there is a square section of railway sleepers. This has been turned into a miniature Strawberry Bed.

The only thing growing in the vegetable patch is a clump of Forget Me Nots. I have dug around those. The clothes dryer has been replaced by Cats rotary dryer and moved further right towards the fence. We originally lost the first metal rotary dryer spike down the hole that the green one was in. It was five feet down the metal base pole so our little spike disappeared into a cylindrical hole when we put it in. It went deep underground, we could have hit coal it was so deep. We could not get it out so in the future archaeologists will find a copper coloured spike...

The view from the top of the garden. The decking is on the left hand side. It forms a sort of wooden frame for the kids to run over to get to the slide. It has been bolted and screwed by power tools together and is impossible to dismantle with hand tools. The amount of space it takes up means one of our first jobs will be to dismantle it.
Like everything it sounds much simpler than it is. Moving has been a nightmare at times with problems everywhere. The garden is my source of refuge from stress. I can sit by the back door and look out at the bird feeders. I can visualise new sections to the garden, and dream a little more.
The garden itself runs along an East/West route and has Sun in the back garden most of the day hence the term its a sun trap. It is situated in a man made valley, surrounded by a house on the right, and behind the left fence a house set back. Behind the Shed there are further row of houses behind Trees. There are three big Conifers to the left with at least one large Tree behind it.
On the right hand side there are three smaller trees and a large Hedgerow that runs along the neighbours border.
There is a mixture of Environment for the garden birds to live on hence the Dawn Chorus here starts around 4am and is still going strong now at 10am! It is alive with singing, chirping, and whistling sounds in the sunshine.
I brought over a hundred and twenty pots with me to fill the new garden with sights and smells, foliage and flowers. The cash value of all the plants must be hundreds of pounds. I love to lavish money on the garden. I have already spent a good few hours in the new garden getting close to the earth and the birds. I have noticed that the insects have started to visit already. Beetles and worms that were not there originally. The soil was a mixture of builders sand and clay,and had not been dug over in a long time.
The transformation has begun. I think the best gardening projects are best done full of enthusiasm and passion, but never done fully to completion. It always good to have something else to do. The after photos will be blogged soon.