National Gardening Week

I planned to get the house deep cleaned on Monday as soon as I got home from dropping the girls off at school but my plans went awry!

I went to the kitchen, bagged up blankets that the girls use for their den in the little ‘tree house’ (it’s not actually in a tree but that’s what they call it!) that Ant built for them and took the bag out to return them to the tree house.
I decided I’d just tidy up the play area and three hours later it was lunch time and Ant was coming home for his sandwich!

I ended up weeding, removing grass from the stone path, cleaning out the waterfall, planting some more plants, weeding another planting area where I was happy to find that some of the plants I thought had died are actually growing and clearing out the greenhouse.

Can’t for the life of me remember what they are though! :/

The garden looked liked this before I started…

 

Notice the grass growing through the stones on the path? Removing it from the whole length of the path was a nightmare!

and like this after 3 hours hard graft!

I went out again Tuesday morning and spent another hour emptying pots/planters, planting some more plants and sweeping.
There’s still quite a lot left to do but after the three hours on Monday my back was killing so I decided not to push it and just work on it some more during the week.

I want to get some seeds sown, all the pots and planters washed and a plan as to where I want them this year as well as what I want to grow in them.
Another thing I want to sort out this year is the pitiful lawn. It never recovered after having the paddling pool out on it last year so soon after the grass seed had started growing. We really didn’t give it chance to establish. I won’t be making that mistake again!

I was really pleased to see my bleeding heart plants are again growing after laying dormant all winter and I found that you can split them in autumn so next year I’ll have twice the amount ๐Ÿ™‚
I love these plants because they’re shade lovers and one of the easiest plants I’ve ever grown. The success I had with them last year really helped with my gardening confidence!

I didn’t get outside yesterday as I had my slimming world group in the morning and spent the afternoon catching up on blog posts and stuff.

Today looked iffy as well, what with the strong winds, but I think I’ll be able to go out for a while after lunch ๐Ÿ™‚

The housing association came to check out the trees and the ivy that’s overtaking the house and they’re planning on removing it all, cutting down the enormous evergreens to a better height and removing one or more of them because the roots are lifting the garden path and making it unsafe.
It’s sad because I love the trees but hopefully it’ll work in our favour because we should get more sun on the garden ๐Ÿ™‚

The ivy has pulled the guttering away so when it rains the water just runs down the wall. It’s also taking over my elder tree. The man from the housing association agreed not to chop that tree down after I begged and pleaded with him because I love it!
I put my waterfall under the tree because it’s my favourite place to sit in the summer and removing the tree would have ruined the whole area for me.

See below for update….all the ivy from the house has now been removed ๐Ÿ™‚

 

I’m not sure if they’re going to remove one or both of these evergreens. One of them is the one causing the problem with the path.

 

I’m sure all the neighbours will happy when these giants get chopped down to a reasonable height and the sun is able to get into their gardens!
We had them chopped right down when we moved in and the housing association said they were responsible for them because we didn’t plant them but they’ve left ever since to grow right back up again.
I can’t wait to see how much of a difference it makes to the garden in regards to the sun. I don’t have many areas where it gets full sun and I’d love to be able to grow more sun loving flowers ๐Ÿ™‚

I was looking back at last year’s gardening posts and the difference between the 2 years is amazing. At the end of March last year my bleeding heart was already flowering, as were the daffodils and lots of others.
This year the daffs have only just started poking through and as you can see from the picture above of the bleeding heart plant, it’s going to be another couple of weeks before it’s big enough to flower.

I’m really enjoying getting the garden back to it’s former glory!

**EDIT**
The guys came and removed all the ivy from the house and it’s made a huge difference!