Sue Tanner's 15 minutes of fame

Well neither of us are green fingered so having lots of plants is out. Philip wants a shed so he can get back to making his model airplanes, I can't stand the smell of the glue so have banned him from using it in the house, mean I know but plays havoc with my asthma and don't personally think it's good for the kids.

So I guess you need to see what it was like before the works start, I'm afraid that we don't have any pictures of what it was like when we moved in, but to say that it was overgrown is the understatment of the century. The plants from one side had grown across to the other and visa versa to make a canopy overhead, there was a makeshift greenhouse of sorts at the bottom housing stuff from broken TV's to the original sash windows. Our parents come round to help clear the place and to advise us what in the way of plants is worth saving and what wasn't.

In this picture you can see the branches of an apple tree, this was in such an awkward place in the garden that you couldn't use the patio area for sun loungers and it also encroached into the lawn area also losing area to put the loungers. I pulled it down one morning before Philip work up.

The table area was where the old green house thing used to be but the area isnt big enough for you to actually sit on the chairs to use the table to eat from. But it looked nice.

The plant lulling all over the place on the left is Passion Fruit which actually produces very lovely flowers but it grows like wild fire and gets everywhere. Within this mass of Passion Fruit is a rose, which we discover is just one plant but it is so wild it has grown from one end of the wall to the other and upwards, so you get odd patches of roses popping out.

This is after we had cleared the passion fruit out, we found an old wire bed frame but it was so entwined in the passion fruit we couldn't pull it out so left it where it was.

Got to say that the garden doesn't look to bad in these photo's but the suns shining and it has just all been cleared of the things we don/t want. But the passion fruit soon grows back to an enormous bush and the whole garden starts to look messy again after a few months. Yes I know that we should keep it under control but we have no idea what we are doing. So best to start afresh and with things that we decide to plant and hopefully then we can keep on top of things.

Not sure if you can tell from these photo's but its made clearer on the kitchen refit section that we have an area between the house and next doors fence that is perfect for a dog run, so we create a fence to stop the dogs getting through to the garden if not invited. It hasn't worked to well so thats one thing we will have to sort properly.

Right so we are clear that we want the whole lot ripped out and started again, we have a disagreement about the tree's but Philip insists that the bay tree must stay just chopped back a bit, this means the border cannot go straight up but has to somehow go round it. Not to happy about that but it is his garden as well and he does use the leaves in cooking. So I call round a few gardeners to give quotes and discuss what we want.

Now I don't know if I'm talking a different language to these gardeners but when we get the quotes in they vary from 3K to over 8K. Needless to say I just laugh at the 8K quote and bin it.

Its Decided we're going with a Company called B Wright Landscapes Ltd not the cheapest of the bunch but no where near 8K, I tell the guy about that quote and his feelings are that that company didn't want the work as everything has to go through the house as we are terrace, he also tells me that he has charged for going through. They can't start until end of October which means things will have to be up in the air for some months but fingers crossed everything will be done before Archers birthday 19th Dec.

Shed hunting

One thing we have agreed on is that the shed will go across the full width of the garden at the back, just need to work out how far out from the back wall it will come, also the borders will be smaller.

so here we go picture of what Philip is looking at getting, he had a good look on ebay and tought this one would fit the bill.

Coming in at £1005 then the cost of erecting it. Will have to look into that and the budget.

And it begins

Well its now October and the gardener is here ripping the guts out of the garden.

Must update you on the shed situation, as we had a few months before all this ripping out got started Philip was still looking around at sheds and came across Bromley Garden Buildings and fell in love with the chalets on there particularly the Leopard, so he has been speaking to them and has arranged for them to provide a chalet, this has actually blown the budget as its coming in over 3K, yes tell me about it over 3 times more than the first one he showed me and I had logged in my mind cost for the budget but I suppose as it is taking up the entire width of the garden it would look better than the first one and it is being made to Philips spec so he will be getting exactly what he wants.

So in pictures how the garden and shed went. The gardeners where here for 4 days and we could not believe how quickly they cleared the garden and unlike the last skip the skip went well, was delivered one day and picked up the following. The gardeners time here was over 7days but had a couple of daysfree of them as had to let the patio cement set before they finished it off.

Garden Refurb 2007

This is also a work progress....

OK so what shall we do with it?

Shed hunting

And it begins






					Homepage Pregnancy Diary Kitchen Refit Blog Garden Refurb Blog Curriculum Vitæ Archer William Tanner Hubby's Website Email me Visits to this page:





© Copyright 2005, Sue Tanner. The original copy of this page can be found at: http://www.philtanner.com/gardenrefit.cfm Page visited: 06 September 2010 16:28:00 GMT
					Garden Refurb 2007 This is also a work progress.... OK so what shall we do with it? Well neither of us are green fingered so having lots of plants is out. Philip wants a shed so he can get back to making his model airplanes, I can't stand the smell of the glue so have banned him from using it in the house, mean I know but plays havoc with my asthma and don't personally think it's good for the kids. So I guess you need to see what it was like before the works start, I'm afraid that we don't have any pictures of what it was like when we moved in, but to say that it was overgrown is the understatment of the century. The plants from one side had grown across to the other and visa versa to make a canopy overhead, there was a makeshift greenhouse of sorts at the bottom housing stuff from broken TV's to the original sash windows. Our parents come round to help clear the place and to advise us what in the way of plants is worth saving and what wasn't. So these pictures are from after the major rip out from when we first moved in. From the borders you can see lots of earth, before we cleared it we wasnt even sure if we would find any. The picture of the right shows a earthern ware pot with what I believe is called a Heebie, can't find any information on it at the moment, probably spelling it wrong, but this was everywhere, so I took a cutting and potted it in this pot and it is still alive today. In this picture you can see the branches of an apple tree, this was in such an awkward place in the garden that you couldn't use the patio area for sun loungers and it also encroached into the lawn area also losing area to put the loungers. I pulled it down one morning before Philip work up. The table area was where the old green house thing used to be but the area isnt big enough for you to actually sit on the chairs to use the table to eat from. But it looked nice. The plant lulling all over the place on the left is Passion Fruit which actually produces very lovely flowers but it grows like wild fire and gets everywhere. Within this mass of Passion Fruit is a rose, which we discover is just one plant but it is so wild it has grown from one end of the wall to the other and upwards, so you get odd patches of roses popping out. This is after we had cleared the passion fruit out, we found an old wire bed frame but it was so entwined in the passion fruit we couldn't pull it out so left it where it was. Got to say that the garden doesn't look to bad in these photo's but the suns shining and it has just all been cleared of the things we don/t want. But the passion fruit soon grows back to an enormous bush and the whole garden starts to look messy again after a few months. Yes I know that we should keep it under control but we have no idea what we are doing. So best to start afresh and with things that we decide to plant and hopefully then we can keep on top of things. Not sure if you can tell from these photo's but its made clearer on the kitchen refit section that we have an area between the house and next doors fence that is perfect for a dog run, so we create a fence to stop the dogs getting through to the garden if not invited. It hasn't worked to well so thats one thing we will have to sort properly. Right so we are clear that we want the whole lot ripped out and started again, we have a disagreement about the tree's but Philip insists that the bay tree must stay just chopped back a bit, this means the border cannot go straight up but has to somehow go round it. Not to happy about that but it is his garden as well and he does use the leaves in cooking. So I call round a few gardeners to give quotes and discuss what we want. Now I don't know if I'm talking a different language to these gardeners but when we get the quotes in they vary from 3K to over 8K. Needless to say I just laugh at the 8K quote and bin it. Its Decided we're going with a Company called B Wright Landscapes Ltd not the cheapest of the bunch but no where near 8K, I tell the guy about that quote and his feelings are that that company didn't want the work as everything has to go through the house as we are terrace, he also tells me that he has charged for going through. They can't start until end of October which means things will have to be up in the air for some months but fingers crossed everything will be done before Archers birthday 19th Dec. Shed hunting One thing we have agreed on is that the shed will go across the full width of the garden at the back, just need to work out how far out from the back wall it will come, also the borders will be smaller. so here we go picture of what Philip is looking at getting, he had a good look on ebay and tought this one would fit the bill. Coming in at £1005 then the cost of erecting it. Will have to look into that and the budget. And it begins Well its now October and the gardener is here ripping the guts out of the garden. Must update you on the shed situation, as we had a few months before all this ripping out got started Philip was still looking around at sheds and came across Bromley Garden Buildings and fell in love with the chalets on there particularly the Leopard, so he has been speaking to them and has arranged for them to provide a chalet, this has actually blown the budget as its coming in over 3K, yes tell me about it over 3 times more than the first one he showed me and I had logged in my mind cost for the budget but I suppose as it is taking up the entire width of the garden it would look better than the first one and it is being made to Philips spec so he will be getting exactly what he wants. So in pictures how the garden and shed went. The gardeners where here for 4 days and we could not believe how quickly they cleared the garden and unlike the last skip the skip went well, was delivered one day and picked up the following. The gardeners time here was over 7days but had a couple of daysfree of them as had to let the patio cement set before they finished it off.