Renovation project - Gardening in Cheshire

Renovation project - Gardening in Cheshire

OK so I am not the world’s best gardener but hell, how long does it take to make a little garden look pretty, well not even pretty, just tidy

The first thing is to try to get some of the ivy under control, I have some snips, ranging from hand too tree size. And after a whole day it does not look a great deal different but I have completely filled two big wheelie bins and have a pile for another one.

The ivy takes a couple of days to get to a point where it looks OK, I have also met some more of the neighbours from behind the house who are very happy with my efforts, so it must look a lot better than it did.

Next we need to clear the garden, the swing set and trampoline are moving a couple of houses along so rather than take the items to pieces they are lifted over the fences, with 5 men it does not take long, but for anybody living behind it must have been a strange sight and listening to them was hilarious.

It really was one of those comedy moments that you could not imagine.

But the back garden is now cleared, we still have the lawn mower and strimmer in the shed, and john cuts the grass.

I set about the front garden and the passage at the side. I think I fill about 10 wheelie bins in total with just gardening rubbish and a least 2 car full’s of normal rubbish go to the tip.

But it is getting there; a big tip for when you are clearing around flag stones is to slice along them with a knife. This removes all the weeds in a clean line without hurting your fingers trying to pull them out, this is a useful tip for clearing weeds from anything hard,

But a week later we have a garden, the front has bark covering and a couple of potted plants, the passageway is clear and the bins stacked neatly and the back garden is big enough to have a table and chairs and a lawn.

I had forgotten how big the garden was and although the front garden now looks very empty it does look clean and tidy, this is not our home, we do not need to personalise it, it just has to look good and now I think it does.

Here are the before and after photos