The Front Garden Updates

Ben

We’ve done a fair bit outside this year. Last year we got the fences in and the hedges, but things have changed a lot since then.

Mum produced us a simple design based on some rough measurements we took of the front (no proper survey this time), and we got to work as soon as we could.

The Plan

Around April, we began to implement The Vision. Here are some of the things we did.

The Gabions

The Gabions act as a separation between the two parts of the front garden; the walkway and the ornamental part. We filled them with wood in the hope that they would encourage bugs and such like crawly things.

Testing!
Working out how much weed mat to use
Two down
All in! We filled them later on.
And filled. We changed the wood later to be end on, this was temporary (and lasted months, so not very temporary)

The Wall

George helped us get our little wall under the big window built. We hadn’t tried mixing mortar yet, so this was new to us.

There was already a wall but it wasn’t close enough to the house for what we had in mind, so we built another wall. Behind that one. And sort of savaged the old one, too.

The blocks we used for this were all free, and repurposed from the old lean to we demolished.

There were already these big bits of concrete there which we rearranged and used as a base
Cutting into the old one where our new return would intersect
Mixing mortar
Laying our first course
Breaking old mortar off the reused blocks
Mostly done, and new concrete footings for the return.
Our first block on the return. Without George. You can hardly tell.
Return complete…until the step is built in September.
Temp path re-laid inline with how it is on the plan (roughly). Mainly to avoid killing the postman.

Planting

On a whim one day in early April, we decided to go to the garden centre, and splurged on many foliage based lifeforms. The garden began to take shape. The hedge was also beginning to grow in and establish itself.

We got them all planted the same day, and that was the majority of the planting done! One of the geraniums did later die, but everything else has been going strong since.

Some pictures after it grew in a bit and got a little more vibrant

Little Step

We built a little step in between the wall and the gabions. All of the block walls will eventually get rendered to make them look a little nicer!

Please disregard the random brick, but it really was the perfect size.

DIY Gates

It took us a few months on and off, but we did manage to build our front gates too.

Resawing fence posts with the rubbish table saw
Broke the mitre saw, bought a bigger one
Half laps
Dry fit
Cutting another lap joint
With the tongue and groove pieces in
Full dry fit
All the bits!
Checking the size! They did need some shaving down.
Almost done
All fitted
Made a number later on

Bin Shelter and Planters

In the plan there was an idea for a little shelter to put the bins under so they weren’t quite so obviously ugly. We made one out of a load of the scrap wood we had from tearing down the pergola and the lean to in the back. We also made three little wooden planters out of the same stuff.

We may grow some plants up the bin shelter in the future, but it needs a path laid under it first so that it has a solid base. Right now it’s a little wonky.

Trees

We are now jumping forwards to 2023 (everything previous was dotted around 2022 at various points, possibly some was actually from the previous year. Oops). We bought two trees, a Rowan Sheerwater Seedling and an Amelanchier Robin Hill. We got them planted in January.

Digging for the Amelanchier
The sad state of the Rowan patch
Merilynn dug it out
In goes the tree
Much nicer

A Bed for Sleepers

We bought 13 100x200mm railway sleepers (new, not reclaimed) to build this bed at the front and a wall in the back garden (separate post).

Smashed out the little remaining wall
Laid some offcuts at the bottom for stability
And screwed the main long side piece to the base
Covered it in weed matting
Dug out the rest
Aaaaand done
Looks much nicer now

Now just the path to do really and then the front will be more or less complete! You can also see in these photos the hedge starting to sprout for the spring, and our new windows (also to be in another post)! That’s caught us up to just a few weeks ago now, at least on the front garden, anyway.

Categories: Renovation