Garden hopes

The opening pictures are not pretty today I'm afraid but I wanted to share them because I want to remind myself just how far we have come with our garden and hopefully by the summer I can show even more progress. 

The first three photos here show how our garden looked in August 2011, approximately 4 weeks after we moved in here. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of how it looked on the day we moved in as I didn't get my camera out quick enough before Lovely S went to work on the jungle! But what I can tell you is that only about half the amount of grass was visible due to the amount of growth that over hung from all borders. Most of it was pretty ugly greenery. Certainly nothing much worth saving. 

Last year we started to make progress but it was frustrating for me as my pregnancy meant I couldn't be hands on. Lovely S enjoys dealing with his lawn and doing the basics of the weeding and plant care but I'm the one who is really passionate about planting. I am so excited to get out there this year and start turning my garden dreams into reality. 

On Sunday I had a brief hour when both the boys were napping so I took the opportunity to get out there and start assessing. I swept the patio first then did a spot of weeding along border. 

Here are two butlers sinks that Mum and Dad gave me. I'm hoping to remove the concrete treatment as I actually prefer the original look. These will be moved down close to the shed as the garden gets sun there all day long. I plan to plant one up with herbs and the other with salad leaves. 

This border down the left may not look like much yet but it is the one we have done the most with. We've planted a number of evergreen plants to give it some structure all year round, including the box balls which I love. Everything is quite small at present but I hope through this year things will really get going. Looking at the picture below I'm thinking that I seriously need to do something about the lawn edging. I love to see a nice crisp edge to a lawn. 

I still can't decide what to do with the shed. Do we paint it? Do we leave it? Do we keep it?Do we knock it down? It's not really in the best state close up but I do like the focus it gives the bottom of the garden.The wall is looking a little sad as well with the selection of random pots sitting on it. These pots are definitely coming off. I think it will look better bare with larger pots sitting in front of it and flowers behind.  

The bird table has been moved a lot but I popped it here on Sunday. I think eventually it will be in the border in front of the patio though. This border below needs some serious work. We have put some box in here too and there are now three roses. One of the roses is one that my in-laws gave us as a first Wedding Anniversary present. It has never done well as it lived in a pot for a while as we knew we would be moving and wanted to take it with us. When we moved it was a while before it was planted because of the state of the garden. In the end my Mother in law just plonked it in somewhere just to get it in the ground but it wasn't really the right place and last year it didn't thrive. So my Mum moved it to this border for me at the end of last Summer. I'm hoping it's going to prefer it's new home as it will get a lot more sun. It has two new friends in the shape of two David Austin roses that Mother in law bought us for Christmas. They went in bare rooted in November and are showing signs of springing into life right now. There are two more in the other main border. I can't wait to see how they all do. I miss the beautiful roses that we had in our old house. 

The patio is looking fairly bleak at the moment. Most of my big pots are in the garage as is the bench that usually lives out here. We really didn't make much of the patio last year and this year I want so much more from it. 

I want to paint these railings outside the back door and I have a vision of pots of geraniums on the steps outside my kitchen door

So that is where we're at now with the garden. The sun has been shining today and I'm imagining how this garden is going to progress over the Spring and Summer. I can't wait to share it with you here. I have such hopes. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx