Clearing the Garden Dumping Ground

Last Sunday, seeing as the weather was lovely, I asked OH if he would help me to overhaul the end of the garden, which in recent years has become a bit of a dumping ground.

For anyone new to my blog, the fencing around this area was built by some garden landscapers to enclose my daughter's trampoline, which it did for several years.  Now 17, she no longer really uses the garden much, so a couple of years ago we took the trampoline out and gave it to some neighbours for their children.  This left a big circular space.

For a few years, we haven't really done anything with it.  It did house a mini green house and potting table for a while, but these items gradually rusted and rotted away and last year I cleared them out intending to make over this part of the garden.

As with many plans, they don't actually come to fruition when you intend them to and it got left. Bits and pieces that used to be housed in the greenhouse got left here and the only household member to enjoy the space was the dog.

Here's a picture of the area before we started work on it:

We'd previously put a few pavers down to stop foxes burrowing underneath and as a base for the mini greenhouse, but we intended to reuse them to create a different look in this part of the garden.

OH set to work pulling up all the pavers and setting them aside, whilst I removed all the clutter that had accumulated and tried to find it all a new home elsewhere.

Once the pavers were removed OH dug trenches down each side in order to foxproof this part of the garden with chicken wire.  They often dig tunnels under the fences, and we wanted to prevent this.

Our intention here is to create planting strips along each fence, in which we intend to grow some tall bamboo plants and create a leafy secluded little seating area. Obviously, with lockdown, it might be difficult to complete this project right now, but getting started on a sunny day, seemed like a good idea.

The dog enjoyed digging along with OH and trying to stick her nose through the fence into the garden at the back (Hence the hole!). She loves it when we work out in the garden with her. As you can see, she is heavily invested in this corner of the garden, hence her appearance in this photograph.

With a bit of work and no expense, it now looks much better:

This part of the garden is lovely and shady in the afternoons, partly on account of the palm tree closeby.  I think that considering we did this transformation with only what we had to hand, it looks okay. Much tidier and usable in any case.

This is probably as far as we can get for now, until we can buy some bamboo plants, more pavers and more willow panels to go on the back fence, but even so, it's much improved. I'll post again when the transformation is eventually completed.