Just my imagination...

Each day the lawn gets a little greener, but it's still got quite a way to go before you could call it 'luxuriant' in most places.
To help you imagine how it will look in the end, here are my design sketches of the north view:

The grasses, shrubs and trees on the left and the beech columns are all there - but somewhat smaller than drawn; the pond and bog garden are as yet just holes in the ground.

And the terrace:
Several clematis are now planted as well as the wisteria, but we haven't quite achieved the welding of the obelisks yet, so they have some poles to comfort them in the short term.

Yesterday Alan completed the blockwork for the greenhouse foundation, and we assembled the sides and ends.  There's probably another day's worth of work to complete it, which needs a non-gliding, non-pouring-with-rain-or-blowing-a-gale day so probably not over bank holiday weekend...

Fruity!

To add to the raspberries, we now have strawberries and a fig.  I ache too much to get up and get the camera to download a pic of the fig - but you won't be too surprised to know it looks like a stick.  I've also attached some rabbit-proof (!??? I hope) fencing across the access to the vegetable plot and started to lay the reclaimed paviours on the pathways.  Planted shrubs - pyracantha and mahonia out the front, and pittosporum at the back.  And did I mention having bought some cute alpines? - Installed on the gabion wall.  Meanwhile Alan has been levelling the space for the greenhouse and putting some concrete into a trench to make a small retaining wall on the down side.  Pics will follow, as, hopefully, will the greenhouse.

Our lovely neighbours

Our lovely former neighbours Wendy and Frank came to view and dine last night, bringing with them a huge row's worth of raspberry canes.  Thank you Wendy!  Here is their provisional* new home:
Looking forward to the first harvest - these are autumn raspberries but with any luck they'll get their skates on and be a-fruiting by late summer.
* this is where soft fruit is planned to be, but I haven't actually set any beds out yet, so they may end up moving.  Meanwhile, they do at least have a home for this year.

Open sesame!

For the first time a couple of days ago, it was warm enough to open the west-facing bifolds.  And it looks like this:

Yesterday we ate our first lunch on the patio.  Looking forward to a lot more of this!  (Today, mind you, we were back in coats, hats, wetsuits and flippers - no chance of gardening :( )

And did those feet, in ancient time,

...walk upon England's kitchen garden, still mostly brown?
Thanks to JP for the Jerusalem Artichokes which have taken up residence here by the kitchen garden gate.  They will form a screen along the fence until we get some shrubs planted on the other side - or until the soup-need becomes overwhelming, whichever comes first!

Sticks and stones

It's been quite a while since our last post (apologies to our faithful readers), but on the face of it things haven't changed much.  Which is odd, as we've been out in the garden just about all day every day (apart from our week's holiday) since then.  And it's mostly been heavy lifting and digging.   Every day the lawn gets a degree more green as the grass germinates and grows - although every day I take a load more stones and rocks off the surface...  There are a lot of sticks where there weren't sticks before - this is the birch copse....  

<<this is the hazel grove... and here are the beech columns:

Then there has been a huge amount of earth moving to complete the vegetable beds - edging completed, with peas, spinach, garlic, spuds, and salad various to date, more stuff to be sown and planted in the next few days.  The kitchen garden is about to gain some of the horse manure (in sacks) I've just started shifting in from one of my three muck sources! (The stud offer straw or shavings based manure, while Carol across the road offers grass-based product...)  Levelling the paths between the beds is back-breaking work and is progressing slowly, the aim being to get a surface down that we can pave with the reclaimed patio and driveway paviours.

Meanwhile Alan has been laying out the space for the greenhouse, which is on quite a slope and will therefore require quite a bit more heavy lifting.  If anyone reading this fancies shifting some flinty mud, you're very welcome to visit....
There's a huge number of things in pots in the area on the stableyard where the compost heaps are going to be.  They need to be planted out before I can make the compost areas.  But I can't plant them until I have flowerbeds to put them into.  The bed next to the pond needs a retaining wall before it can be planted, and that needed a fair bit of excavation as well as adjustment to the roughly-dug-out pond area.  I completed the retaining wall foundation yesterday and bought the sleepers to make the wall - here it is now in situ, just back-filling to do.

Indoors, Alan has pretty much wrestled the garage into a tidy state, although we don't yet have the shadowboards up, and yesterday Tim the Logburner fitted the additional insulation round the flue which is part of the condensation-prevention measures.  ...Now, back to work.....