A tale of two halves.....

and this half still needs lots of work!

I've been really busy in the front garden ~ so much weeding, tidying and planting to be done out there.  I've made really good progress on the dining room/bathroom side but am finding it hard to get going on the living room side.  I think I must be suffering garden fatigue LOL

I thought I'd show you the barely-started side first, then the other side will look extra good ~ in theory, anyway!

When we moved to St Abbs the front border had an old, gnarly hedge which was long past its best.  The arbour seat spent a whole year laying on the lawn!

Sadly the hedge was beyond saving, so Vernon and Mark cut it back and dug it out.

This was a fuchsia ~ a very large, old fuchsia ~ and growing so close to the wall that in places it was actually popping out through the stones on the other side!  The pipe visible on the left is a soil pipe and as we were soon to discover, it was blocked by plant and root debris.  Suffice to say, it wasn't a pleasant job for Chris to unblock it but we were mightily pleased when he did!

Lots of work to be done on this side of the garden, but it's so much better now that the old hedge has gone.

The lawn is in very poor condition, it's really taken a battering over this last year.  I'm hoping that we will be able to rejuvenate it in due course.

Did I ever mention how much I have come to dislike sycamore trees?  I don't know if this one was deliberately planted or if it self-seeded, but either way it was too close to the boundary wall and we had to have it taken down.

This photo shows just how close to the wall it was.

I truly don't like to see trees being destroyed but sycamores are simply too big for a garden of this size, especially planted so close to walls.  As an added bonus, now that it has been taken down we have much more light coming in the side window of our living room.

It was all just a tangly, weedy mess here with quite a slope from the path to the lawn.

We got Chris to build a retaining wall with new sleepers.  The garden still slopes, with the house being on a hill, albeit more gently now.  It is definitely much better having two distinct levels.

We had another sycamore on this side of the garden, again planted too close to the house.  We get a lot of strong winds here, and those branches would bash the roof like the whomping willow having a hissy fit in the Harry Potter books! 

All three of these windows let in so much more light now that the tree has been taken down.

Another weedy mess.  You can see the big crack in the path (beneath the garden chairs), caused by the tree roots.

When the bathroom wall was sorted out we were left with a lot of granite stones.  I thought this would make a nice place to sit first thing in the morning (the garden faces east), so asked Vernon and Mark to make use of the stones by building a retaining wall.

 We didn't have enough for both sides of the garden, which is why sleepers were used on the other side.  Some of that rubble spread over the ground was removed and used to help fill a hole in the porch ~ but that is a tale for another post 😉

Vernon wasn't really convinced about my plan for the wall LOL but I think that it matches up very nicely with the original garden boundary wall.

The section of concrete path running across the house was removed.  Chris and Brian then laid membrane and put down chippings.  We brought the bench with us from our old garden; it's been lifted off the chippings by a couple of flagstones which had been taken up in the back garden.

Although it isn't that obvious from the angle of this photo, Chris built a small raised bed for me with more of the stones.

This is the garden when we first moved in.  Over by the boundary wall is a tangled mess of neglected rosa rugosas.  

The old hedge on this side was also beyond saving.....

 as was the tree in the corner.

Vernon cut back the rosa rugosas very hard but they bounced back and produced a profusion of lovely flowers.....

and beautiful hips, which the blackbirds greatly enjoy.

The garden looks a little bare at the moment, but I have spent many hours online doing research for suitable shrubs and plants.....

a variety of which (shrubs) have now been planted.  I'm hoping that by having more diversity of planting lots of insects will be encouraged into the garden, along with more birds as well.  I have used bags and bags of bark chippings to help keep the weeds down!

I asked Vernon to dig out the rosa rugosas.  They have been heeled-in temporarily in the back garden and won't go to waste, I promise!  In fact I have already planted some in one of the new raised beds in the back garden 😊

The daffodils were already in the garden but had been swamped by the rosas.  Last year they came through with rather sickly-looking leaves, but as the rosas had been cut back hard I think the daffodils were able to take in much more nutrition than they had probably done for a very long time.  This year they have been absolutely gorgeous with healthy leaves and masses of blooms.

The garden is full of plant labels as aide memoires for me ~ whilst I may remember what a shrub is called, I'll be extremely hard-pressed to recall the actual variety!  Admittedly they are rather noticeable at the moment (although being black they do blend in somewhat) but as the shrubs grow larger the labels should hopefully "disappear".

I'm not sure that this flowering currant was planted here deliberately as it's growing at a bit of a strange angle.  I suspect it may have self-seeded as our neighbours have a lot of these shrubs in their garden.  I've left it where it is as I quite like flowering currants (in moderation!), and of course the bees love it.  I cut back some of the stems to help give it a somewhat better shape.  I'm sure over time I can make it into a nice-looking shrub, and plants that flower so early in the season are to be treasured.

So, I think I've made a jolly good start with the front garden and I confess that it's very uplifting when our neighbours and passers-by comment on how nice it is looking  😊

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Little words of wisdom

Squeezing quarts into pint pots??

By 'eck, I've got a lot of stuff!  And I was absolutely determined to get said stuff into my new craft shed, by hook or by crook!  Obviously, I completely forgot to take photos of the shed before I filled it to the gunnels ~ but I guess you are used to my lack of comprehensive photographic records by now LOL

It took me quite a few days to get it all stashed away, and I was knackered by the time I'd finished, but I'm thrilled with my little world 😍

I have a motley assortment of furniture that have come my way over the years ~ ideal pieces for my craft shed.  The pine sideboard in the corner used to be in the back bedroom of our old house, and was used by Beverly and Sam when they were still living at home.  It's a bit stained and bashed these days but I plan to give it a lick of paint at some point.  Do you like the flooring, by the way?  It was cheap 'n' cheerful but I think it looks very nice.

The Singer sewing machine table belonged to Adrian's Mum and still has the sewing machine inside, although it would need extensive restoration to actually work.  It weighs a bloody ton and moving it from the house out to the shed was a nightmare!  Still, it makes a very useful base to stand a dolls' house on.  Since they are two-a-penny and therefore don't have any monetary value, one day I will see about stripping back the manky varnish and either restaining or perhaps just polishing up the wood.

The little cupboard next to the sewing machine table belonged to my Great Aunt Mary.  It, too, has been bashed and battered somewhat over the years ~ before I got my mitts on it, I might add!  I'm very curious about what the wood looks like without that heavy dark varnish, so I may try to strip back a little in an unobtrusive place to have a look.

The little square table is another piece destined for eventual stripping and, hopefully, simply waxing. It was given to me by my Mum ~ I'm not sure how she got hold of it, but I seem to recall her telling me that it originally came from a pub.  Perhaps she smuggled it out in her handbag.....😄 

This will be my "dirty" bench.  Again, it came from Mum who got it from where she used to work.  It is a sturdy beast and rather weighty.  I had to ask the guys to help move it out of the house as I couldn't manage to lift it with Adrian ~ I felt the strain on my back straightaway and decided to be sensible for once!  The black ash file cabinet was my sister's; it used to be on castors but wouldn't fit beneath the bench, so Adrian took them off for me.  It's functional, capacious, and therefore extremely useful but really not at all attractive.  Still, never fear, my loves,  I've got ideas a-plenty swirling around in my head to pretty it up.  The mint green trolley is a recent acquisition from Hobbycraft.  It was half-price and will be extremely useful as a work-in-progress holding area.  With it being on wheels, I can easily move it about in the shed to where I happen to be working.

The bookcase in the corner started life, many many moons ago, as an LP storage case.  Adrian got rid of his vinyl collection some time back and I took the case off his hands 😉 It's very sturdy and makes a great bookcase, especially since so many of my dolls' house and craft books are hardbacks and therefore collectively rather weighty.

The dresser also belonged Aunt Mary.  It's similar to the little cupboard but not quite the same.  It, too, has seen better days and the dark varnish isn't all that appealing.  I think I will have to experiment, unobtrusively, on it as well.

The pine desk in the corner is the computer desk we had at our old house.  It's a nice piece of furniture but too big to fit inside St Abbs anywhere.  It is going to be my "clean" table.

The craft shed soon filled up with all the crates, bags, boxes, baskets.....

that had been cluttering up every nook and cranny (or so it seemed!) inside poor St Abbs.

I have to confess that I felt pretty overwhelmed with it all.....

and simply sit and stared at it for quite some time!  I'd forgotten just how much stuff I had ~ and all this was after I'd done a humungous downsizing before we moved up here!  I did eventually pull up my big-girl-panties, though, and got stuck in.  I had to keep telling myself that the only way to eat an elephant is just one bite at a time LOL

I've almost finished putting stuff away now, just waiting for a small flat-pack bookcase (I bet that'll be fun to put together!) to arrive for the rest of my books.  More photos will be forthcoming, for the "grand opening", just to prove that I did manage to fit everything in 😉 

Happy Easter!

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

What a difference.....

.....months of hard work makes!  The back garden is a totally different place now.  As I've mentioned previously, we really hadn't planned on doing any of this work, other than having a new craft shed/store room built, but it just seemed to grow organically when one issue after another needed to be rectified *sigh*  As I'm sure you can imagine, a huge chunk has now been taken out of the renovations budget so it's going to take very much longer to complete the work on the rest of the house.

Just to warn you, my loves, this post is very photo-heavy!

Because the old shed was having to come down we had to have a new one for garden tools, etc.  We bought this one from a chap who lives here in Stromness; Vernon and his merry band of helpers made the base for the shed and helped Murdo put it together in situ.

As you can see I stained the new shed in Cuprinol's Black Ash, which really helps it to "disappear" into the background.  The pile of logs beside it is from the trees we had to have cut down in the front garden.

A levitating shed!  This was a temporary measure whilst George and Dylan put down sturdy supports on concrete pads.  I must try to remember to take another photo of the shed now that it has "landed" LOL  

 

This was the view looking back towards the bathroom from where the new garden shed now stands.  The ground here was held back by railway sleepers which were rotting away, so a lot of the soil had slipped down and was piled against the kitchen extension.  The concrete base, which we think probably supported a water tank at some point, was also very close to both the kitchen and dining room walls.  Water gathered in this area, which was causing dampness in the house.

A lot of soil had to be dug out (the story of our life with this garden!), the old water tank base was demolished, and George built a new retaining wall.  The excess soil was piled up and retained with railway sleepers.  

We've no idea what that concrete thing (to the right) is
but it was one of two that had been buried in the garden.

This photo gives some idea of the different levels out here.

We had lots of pieces of granite which had been used to infill the water tank base, so Chris used some to build a raised bed between the garden shed and the log-store.  Plus it gave us another area to "lose" a bit more of that excess soil!  At the moment it's a temporary holding place for logs.

Vernon and Mark dug out this very old, neglected, flowering currant ~ and it was some task!

We now have another raised bed ~ and the sun can get through, too.  All through this work, there has been the constant juggle between having the excess soil taken away in yet another skip or making some use of it.  Either way there wasn't much difference in labour costs, which influenced our decision to have the raised beds put in.

The retaining wall behind this bed was actually in good condition, so George only had to extend it at either end.  You can just about make out at the far end where the soil had fallen through the rotten sleepers.  All the walls have now been rendered and harled.

These photos show how much higher most of the garden was, as well as the poor condition of the old retaining walls and steps.

We now have a safe walkway.....

 

.....from one level of the garden up to the next.

The fencing will all be stained over the coming weeks.

And yes, you've guessed it ~ another raised bed.  Like I've said, there was an awful lot of soil to be dealt with out here!

I planned it so that there could be a "utility" area here.  I'm thinking of putting my outdoor potting bench alongside the compost bin, plus bags of compost, etc.  I'll take some more photos when I've decided LOL

These rosa rugosas were dug out of the front garden and "heeled-in" temporarily.  They sure are tough old shrubs ~ look at all the new leaves bursting forth!

Another space was left at this end of the bed, which is where the bins will be corralled.

There were some ancient rhubarb plants here, along with some shrubs which had been planted right up against the wall ~ which, of course, had damaged it considerably.  This section of wall came down when all the building work was going on in the garden.  I was somewhat anxious about the big wall, too, as it's not looking too healthy.

I knew that at some point in the future I would like to have a greenhouse, and this area seemed a good place to put one.  We were going to have to have the boundary wall rebuilt anyway, so the guys suggested building something really sturdy for the greenhouse at the same time, bearing in mind the strong winds we get here.  It will be a number of years before we can justify the cost of having the upper part of a greenhouse built as there is still a lot of work to be done inside St Abbs, but at least the framework is in place.  When the greenhouse has been built the walls will be rendered and the outside will be harled like the rest of the garden walls. 

  

Dylan has tied in the new block wall at the back to the old existing wall and filled the cavity with rubble and concrete.  He used leftover pieces of rock from the new boundary wall to close off the sides, and capped the top with more concrete blocks.  You can see how much the old wall is leaning!  Dylan also re-pointed the worst of the pointing on the existing wall, and also on the old boundary wall which runs alongside the shared access.  We may well have to have more re-pointing done along there in the future.

Here's the lovely new stone wall Dylan built to replace the section which had to be demolished.    It is tied-in to the concrete block wall on the other side. 

This new wall is shorter than the original as we now have a pair of stone pillars either side of the gate.

The gateway into the garden from the shared access is wider than the original.  It's good to have a decent sturdy gate in place ~ we don't have to worry about letting Matty out into the garden now.

The arbour seat we brought with us when we moved is now finally in the back garden after laying on the front lawn for over a year!  I'm really looking forward to sitting out here in the summer, and pottering about in the sunshine 😊