The fruit bushes area
When we moved in, the only fruit bushes we had were a white currant and a blackcurrant, both more or less ugly.
The former owners did not even bother with gathering the fruits and the neighbour explained to us that she was the one who did, in order to make some marmalade.
So we kind of had to set things straight. I started by clipping both bushes and by "feeding" them. We also expected to remove the hedge which was much too close to the white currant. Right now they have (green) berries, but the white currant is being aggressively assaulted by aphids (I'm nice so I didn't treat it).
We'd still like to have more, however, because marmalade is just lovely! We decided to add a few more fruit bushes on the other side, behind the garden shed. Sure, there's a clothes line, but there's still some space between it and the neighbour's hedge. So, first step, adding some raspberry bushes I procured from my grandfather. Only problem: it's the middle of August and digging results in this:
After quite a lot of effort, that's what we ended up with:
We added even more fruit bushes in November:
- additional raspberry bushes:
- jostaberry bushes:
- a thornless blackberry bush at the end of the path, which was planted inside an old poplar stump (according to my father-in-law it should "devour" what's left of the stump, in time - let's have faith
)
That's how it turned out (mid-April 2011):
- Raspberry bushes:
- Jostaberry bushes
- Thornless blackberry bush:
And in early May, everything looks fine except for two raspberry bushes. There are even a few raspberries growing (hopefully they won't abort because of the drought) and the blackberry bush seems to be willing to flower!
Compost story
Since you're all waiting impatiently for the next episode of our garden-related work (I am being swamped under massive amounts of fan mail... wait, why don't you believe me? :p), here it is: a compost story!
Waste recycling, sustainable development, good food for plants... Whatever. We want to make some compost. In our family, compost production is rather primitive: my father-in-law uses a heap, and since we're following his advice, well, we're going to use a heap as well. Still, we need to chose a location for the heap. The "logical" location for that (in our specific kind of logic, anyway) is behind the garden shed, because it's not visible from the canopy. However, that's the location we'd used to store the wood from the dreaded thujas.
Ok, so we moved these away. But then, while it's nice to say: "so, let's make a compost heap!", you need stuff to "feed" it. Hence began the first, rather epic stage of compost-making; between July and late February, we were still living in a flat, roughly 15 km away from the house... So we had to use a second bin to sort our organic waste in our very, very small kitchen. Guess what was on Manu's knees in the car every week-end?...
Anyway, between the organic waste from the flat's kitchen, various weeds and small branches, the heap started to look somewhat like, well, a heap:
While it worked in terms of "making compost", it wasn't really too handy: it dries really fast, tends to damage the shed, and a lot of it is wasted when the heap needs to be turned over. Because of that, we dug a small trench and used some of the numerous concrete slabs left over by the former owners to make something more appropriate:
Still, you got to admit that it's definitely not too aesthetically pleasing... As it happens, I'd planned on planting periwinckles on the right side of the shed's door:
I'd added some iris bulbs in Autumn. However, some climbing plant was definitely required to hide the compost heap. In addition, various animals enjoyed digging into the heap a little too much, so there was still a lot off waste as they threw some compost out of the pit, onto the grass in front of it. We "fixed" these two problems in March:
We added some more concrete slabs in front of it (in order to make it easier to put whatever the birds and cats extract from the pit back into it) and a winter jasmine on a wooden lattice to hide it from the path (it still needs to grow though).
I am currently trying to grow a few annual plants near the left part of the pergola: some morning glories and nasturtium (the morning glories have already germinated). I have to wait until next Autumn to replace them with perennial plants. On the right side of the pergola, there is yet another clematis (a white "Gladys Picard" this time) and a red climbing rose bush given by my father-in-law (I have no clue what its name is). In front of the clematis there's a curry plant that will hopefully help protect the lower part of the clematis' from direct sunlight... but it will not happen any time soon: for now the curry plant must be at most 5 cm high, as I obtained it from the school's lawn, where it grew on its own and ended up getting mowed a few times. It's a survivor, so I'm hoping it will be happy there.
As for the bricks and pieces of plastic and cardboard, I'm trying to use them to get rid of the grass as I want to make another flower bed there.
Aromatic plants flower bed (and eventually more)
When we started thinking about how to organise the garden, we considered it would be logical to create a bed of aromatic plants near the canopy, as this is where the kitchen's door leads (yes, we are lazy and we don't feel like having to walk around whenever we need three sprigs of chive). So we choose to do that on the other side of the path relative to the garden - the area with red-ish, brick-like borders on the picture.
In its original state, the area in question more or less included a cherry tree, a rhododendron, some sea thrift and a lot of houseleeks, and it was covered with pine barks, as usual. Near the cherry tree, there were also a ceanothus and another rhododendron. Oh, and there was some kind of huge, quite rickety and rather scary concrete "cup" - an accident waiting to happen really. And a drip for the cherry tree. Yes, that white, vertical thing near the trunk is actually a pipe which was used by the former owners to water the cherry tree... which had been there for 6 years... in an area that used to be a swamp... :s
Of course, the gas tank's removal did not help either. Let's just say one of the rhododendrons did not enjoy being rolled over repeatedly by a trailer truck.
We started clearing the area: removing the brick-like borders, the pine bark and the scary cup. The base of the cup went 50cm into the ground, so it was definitely not easy, especially in the middle of a dry August; removing the cherry tree's drip wasn't much easier, and indeed there's still a little chunk of PVC pipe somewhere below 
Then I started adding plants from various window boxes I'd had for years: aromatic plants of course (thymus, rosemary, savoury, chive, etc.) as well as a few as various flowers such as daylilies, carnations, Christmas roses, columbines, perennial geraniums, violets, lily-of-the-valey...
I planted a few stonecrops and houseleeks near the head of the cherry tree, as the area is really dry...
I added some bulbous plants (yellow grape hyacinths, irises and tulips), as well as a "The President" clematis and a "GoldFlame" honeysuckle to cover the pergola, in Autumn.
I added a few more aromatic plants and some ornamental plants my father-in-law gave me in November:
And here's what it looks like now:
... and a few lovely pictures:
The columbines are starting to bloom, so is the honeysuckle (although its flowers are rather ugly as they started blooming right before Winter), and the clematis is budding...
It looks nice, but there were a few screw-ups.
- There used to be a bottlebrush (a layer from my father-in-law's), but it did not survive the Winter.
- There's lesser celandine everywhere, and I'm afraid I'm going to have a hard time getting rid of it.
- The light green plant at the front is devil-in-a-bush, unless I'm mistaken. There's a lot of that growing everywhere as well, and I'll need to find a way to "segregate" them (I like the plant, but it's a tad invasive).
- I was hoping the black and white tulips would flower at the same time... as it turns out, the white tulips bloom earlier than the black ones.
- It's a little bland right at the beginning of Spring. I need to add daffodils and more tulips.
- The honeysuckle got invaded by aphids; most of them have died out now, but the leaves were badly damaged.
First insane step : the vegetable garden
Given the garden's layout, we felt like the best place to start a small vegetable garden (just, you know, to "have fun") was left of the canopy, between the house and the shed. The only problem with that idea was that, well... it was a rather crowded place.
The future vegetable garden is both under and behind the thuja (or cypress, or... well, ugly conifers, whatever they are) hedge...
Behind the hedge, it's definitely not any better : a huge gas tank (which will be "disappeared" as we get the house connected to the town's gas service) and, under it, a similarly huge concrete slap... covered with ivy...
To be a masochist or not, that is the question, I suppose... And on that point we're definitely in the "Spank me I love it" club.
So, July 2010: the tank must go. And that implies removing at least some part of the hedge. So lil' Julie gets her saw and her little arms and removes 3 of the thuja (yes, yes, with a saw).
Here's the result:
And without the tank :
Fortunately for my little arms, onto which the ugly conifers caused a bit of an allergic reaction (not to mention cuts and bruises), the in-laws came to the rescue with highly technological artefacts (well, a chainsaw and a trailer truck) in August.
And after quite a few sledgehammer- and pickaxe-related events...
... and many trips to the waste collection centre ...
...and "Chainsaw massacre" operations...
... we finally managed to clear the area near the end of the summer:
This Spring we're preparing the land in order to plant a few vegetables.
We should plant some potatoes this week-end. I'm also considering sowing carrots and beans. Courgettes and tomatoes that were sown earlier are looking mostly decent and will join the rest in May...
Because the ground is really clayey, we're not expecting much from the vegetables this year: it's bloody hard to break the clods! But... we'll see: if I end up eating a single courgette, a lone tomato and 3 potatoes, I'll be happy anyway 
Besides it can only improve with time, given the amount of organic waste and compost we're throwing around everywhere
Some will notice the presence of 3 hydrangeas and 2 forsythias in the area we were working on; some of them aren't dead! After quite a while in a pot, the hydrangeas found a new home in a clump above the water tank. As for the forsythias, well... I hope they rest in peace: given their size it was quite impossible to move them. In addition, there were others at the front of the house and I don't have a forsythia-related obsession. However, one of their "babies" is currently in a jardinière, waiting to be moved to a more permanent location...
Our personal “Iraq”
In order to provide a better idea of what needs to be done, nothing beats pictures... and the current state of the garden kind of justifies the title. These pictures were taken in April 2010, before we signed the preliminary sale agreement for the house, in order to show our families what it looked like.
View of the garden from the terrace
Closer to the far end
View from the far end
The area where the gas tank was (and where I'm trying to grow vegetables)
The carport, from the garden
The following pictures were shot in August, after we bought the house and started working a little.
Same location as above, looking to the right
From the carport, left side
From the carport, right side
From the top of the stairs shown above
Forward...
The other side
From the street
That was terrible, was it not?
Introduction to the garden
First of all the context: we chose the house in spring 2010 (time when the first pictures were taken) and we have been the owners since July 2010. Our choice focused on something where we would dare to 'have fun' and as such with plenty of repairs, as much in the inside as in the garden. Conclusion : we only moved in at the end of February 2011 and the approach to gardening of the former owners was almost limited to lawn...
On the organisation point of view, it looks like this:
The light grey areas are paths. Black lines are walls. Brown lines across paths are pergolas. Stonehenge, is the nickname of the only flower bed in the middle of the lawn, mostly empty and surrounded by... rocks, hence the name. The tank is a buried rain water tank.
The land is more or less flat but the house is half buried with an entrance to the garage below the carport. We therefore have slopes on both exits of the carport. The 'path' on the right side of the canopy is a stairway which goes down to a door leading to the basement.
When we got the house, the garden didn't look like anything and the work to reach what corresponds to the image I have of a garden is... quite significant... Even if the whole plot is only around 700 m² ! But the next posts should provide a better view of the extend of the work...
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