Mike's Garden Muse

2003-10-23T05:20:00.000Z

New Bird Sighting

Today I noticed a Grey Wagtail in the garden for the first time. It was washing itself in the pond and then perched on our stone bench whilst drying itself off.

2003-09-08T15:30:00.000Z

Photographs (Before, During And After) The Latest Landscape Project:

You can find some photographs of the latest landscaping project, as it progressed, here. Photographs have been taken from the moment the project started through to it's completion.

2003-09-01T13:34:00.000Z

All Done!

Finally all the landscaping and electrical work is complete, the lighting is up and working, as are the pumps and filters on the pond. The final test was done after dark last night to ensure the positioning of the spotlamps were to our liking, a couple of minor adjustments were made and I feel we are now up and running.

Once the electricial had gone yesterday we decided to take a trip to one of my favourite aquatic suppliers, Mike & Judy's in Birkdale to see what they could offer for stocking up our pond. I have bought equipment and tropical fish from them over the last 20 years or so and have never been disappointed. Whilst the range of fish supplied are slightly limited, their holding tanks are always kept in pristine condition and the quality of their stock is unbeatable. They are also willing to dispense good information from there obviously vast experience and knowledge of keeping fish to anyone who asks both beginner and expert alike.

Now you can imagine my disappointment when I saw a sign outside their premises indicating that a clearence sale was in progress due to imminent retirement. I'm not averse to saving money in any sale, but it wiil be a sad day when Mike & Judy finally retire, I will have to start the painfull process of find a new trusted supplier of tropical fish. In all the years I have dealt with them, I have never had a problem fsh, which is something most dealers would be hard pressed to admit to.

The shop (a wooden cabin at the back of their Bungalow), was extremely busy yesterday, in fact I don't think I've seen so many cars outside of their house before, everybody was looking for a bargain. Suffice to say most of the plants were gone, but I managed to grab 4 decent sized marginal plans for £2 a piece. I also bought ten 3" shubunkins for £10 which seemed like a bargain, plus fish food for both my tropicals and the pond fish, I also bought some netting to place over the pond to catch the leaves from nearby trees as they fall in the autumn. I really would liked to have bought some Sarasa Comets but unfortunately these had all been sold, and will have to try other sources.

Mike & Judy's will finally shut up shop at the end of September, I will be paying them one final visit before their doors shut forever, I may find further bargains, but if I don't then I won't worry, it will just be nice to wish them both well in their retirement years. They will be missed.

2003-08-20T15:06:00.000Z

New Source For Garden Spotlights Found

I've found a supplier locally who is due a delivery of mains operated spotlights suitable for garden lighting. They are Denmans Electrical Wholesalers, the lights come at a price of £6.18 each, but the bulbs are extra.

The electrician is coming to do the work on Sunday, so all being well we will have the electrics fully installed and running by the time he leaves. At last we can leave the pond pumps, filter and waterfall running continuously. This should mean that the green algea explosion, currently affecting the pond, will disappear and hopefully, we will have a crystal clear pond in the very near future. The electrician will also be fitting some security lighting to the outside of the house along with PIR detectors. Now all I have to worry about is the increased electricity consumpsion.

I also now need more plants for the pond, to give the fish, which I haven't seen since Saturday, some extra cover. I know I should have waited for the filters to be working 24/7, but some friends emigrating to Spain, prevailed upon us to take and look after the fish, from their now filled in pond. There were only seven fish and they are fairly small. I don't think that they should cause too many problems, during the part-time filter period.

2003-08-18T13:14:00.000Z

Brief Update

All landscape work is finally complete, now I am only waiting for an electrician to come and connect the wiring and lighting to the mains.

One problem that I am encountering is finding some decent mains operated garden spotlights. There are low voltage spots aplenty, but spotlights for lighting up features from a distance are hard to come by. One shop can supply them but there is a 10 week waiting list. The electrician arrives on Sunday, so I may have to just ask him to lay the cable and I'll connect the lights when I can find some.

The fruit and veg crop have been decent this year, it could have been better, we've made a number of mistakes but this year was our first real attempt at planting vegatables outside a greenhouse environment. We've had an endless supply of tomatoes, a crop of radishes, peas, a few of cucumbers, carrots, cherries and broad beans. The sweet corn will be ready in about two weeks I reckon, and there are still some Scarlett Empreror beans which have just started to flower.

The grape vine (2nd year) has produced a few bunches of small grapes that are bigger than last years crop, but probably will not be suitable for eating yet. Maybe next year, or the year after, we will have a few bunches to eat.

The sprouts have been ravaged by caterpillers, there are loads of them. As we like the butterflies that they are hatching into, we have left the insects to their own devices. The buddleia were covered in red admiral and cabbage white butterflies this weekend, I've never seen so many butterflies in one place.

2003-07-22T13:28:00.000Z

Ongoing Landscapes

The landscaper didn't appear at all for most of last week, as the scorching hot weather was not ideal for laying turf. He finally turned up with the new turf on Saturday morning and had completed laying it by 2pm. It really brought the scheme together. In the meantime we bought a few plants for the pond, we cannot buy fish until the filters have been installed and running for around 3 weeks.

Jobs the landscaper has now left to do:

1. Position and construct stone bench at lawn/rockery edge to overlook the pond
2. Collect and fit pond filter including UV filter
3. Lay electrics and arrange for connection to the mains, for the pond pumps/filter and garden lighting
4. Complete rockery construction using up the so far unused rocks and complete planting to hide filters.
5. Position and erect the dovecot
6. Lay capstones on top of the retaining wall

Even unfinished the work looks excellent and I'm champing at the bit to complete the planting and to stock the pond with fish. One downer though, we sighted the pondkeepers nightmare, a grey heron, checking out the pond on Thursday night. It flew over and landed on a neighbours conservatory and then flew to the sycamore tree at the bottom of the garden, before finally heading westwards towards the woods in the country park. I can see I'm going to need to ensure there is plenty of cover for any fish to hide in. Apparently a heron can eat between 350-700gm of fish a day.

Other birds sighted on Thursday night included numerous swifts and around seven swallows.

I just wish I could get the PC fixed so that I can scan some photographs in for this site. As an aside, the landscaper has now started purchasing materials for his design for the 2003 Southport Flower Show. He won a gold medal at last years event, were we first met him, with his design under A & S Landscapes.

2003-07-11T07:52:00.000Z

Garden Update

It's been a while since I updated this site, mainly because my home PC is still dead. The mouse drivers all died after we salvaged the pictures, the error messages indicated that they needed repairing from the Windows disk. When I tried this all sorts of other errors appeared, so I have decided on a rebuild when time permits.

Anyway, a brief update, the landscaping of the middle area is progressing nicely now, the pathway down to the patio is almost complete, the pond and waterfalls are complete except for the planting, and the rockeries on ether side of the path are partially planted. The area to be lawned hasn't been started yet, apart from being rotovated. The electrics for the pond pumps lighting and UV filter still needs to be laid, but we have had the pumps working and it looks really good. I expect the landscaper to complete the path today, and then start laying the underground cableing.

2003-06-25T15:36:00.000Z

Some Pictures Of Paving Circles

I've managed to salvage the digital photographs from the PC, which is still being worked on, so here are a couple of pictures of the paving circles laid in the garden:

The Original Circle Outside The House

The Unfinished Circle Around The Tree At The Bottom Of The Garden

When the tree circle has been fully completed, ie. bordered by bricks and the earth built up around it, to hide the foundations, we will get some quotes for a tree bench. We then intend to dig the ground over around it and plant fruit shrubs such as goosebery, blueberry, blackberry and any slightly unusual varieties that we can find at the local garden centre.

2003-06-24T07:28:00.000Z

Brief News

The landscaper reappeared on Saturday afternoon and explained that he had to finish two blockpaving jobs last week, which had overrun during the previous week, but would be concentrating full time on our garden now. True to his word he worked all Saturday afternoon, and apart from his Monday Morning Maintenance contract he has been back everyday since. The Pathway is now taking shape as the brick framework is put into place. The rockery stones are being delivered on Wednesday.

I'm afraid I can't provide the promised pictures at the moment because my home PC died at the weekeend, I'm hoping my son can fix it, or at least salvage the D: drive where they reside. I do have backups of last years photos, but hadn't backed up those taken so far this year. Believe it or not, that what I was about to start on Sunday when the PC crashed. Murphy's Law strikes again.

2003-06-20T09:47:00.000Z

Blog Visitors

I have had one or two hits from an Australian site recently and presume it is my brother Trevor who has just moved there. If it is you Trevor, then you can leave comments, on any of the entries, by clicking on the 'Shout Out' link at the bottom of each blog. A comments window will pop-up and you can just type away. I'll get to see them when I next view the page and can comment back.

2003-06-20T09:37:00.000Z

Bird Sightings

Sitting in the garden last night we watched a bird, we hadn't seen before, preening itself whilst perched on a forget-me-not stalk. My Collins book of European birds tells me that it is a male Bullfinch, the bird population visiting the garden is on the increase now that things are taking shape.

Other regular visiters have been: A Robin, two Blackbirds (a male and felmale), two Collared Doves, four Magpies, two Wood Pigeons, a Pheasant, any number of Starlings and a family of Willow Tits.

The Willow Tits actually took residence of a nesting box placed on our shed and raised the babies this spring. I will be cleaning the box out this weekend, as they have now left for the time being, but I expect them to return in the near future. Once the leaves fall off the sycamore tree at the bottom of the garden, I intend to install a couple more boxes. In fact, once the landscaper has finished his work, we intend to erect a dovecote, and buy a pair of breeding fantails. More details probably much later.

2003-06-20T09:18:00.000Z

Landscaper Update!

What is it with British work men? We've had good weather all week but have not seen sight nor sound of the landscaper since Saturday lunchtime, when he finished the heavy duty work. I say that but there was a delivery of bricks on Wednesday, they're stacked neatly into piles.

2003-06-16T15:48:00.000Z

Breeze Blocks And Roses (November 2000 - April 2001)

In November 2000 I injured my back and was off work for seven weeks, it has also meant that I have to be careful when undertaking any heavy work as it is still weak. As a result of the injury it was decided that the next phase of landscaping in 2001 should be undertaken by a professional landscaper. The work required was to level the garden into a series of 3 terraces, each terrace would be themed in some way and the bottom end of the garden would be largely left as it is with the plan to develop a wild flower meadow area.

Due to the cost we decided to procede with the lower terrace first and see how things progressed. The retaining walls were built with breeze blocks, bricks would have been too expensive. Large amounts of earth were moved around by a mini JCB type machine and the shifted earth was allowed to settle. All this took place in February and March with a view to laying a lawn and building a patio at a later date, work which we believed we would be able to complete ourselves.

"Where do the roses come into it?" I hear you ask. Well we planted two climbing roses in the front garden against the garage wall, nothing special just a plain white and and pretty much standard pink, I can't even remember which variety they were.

2003-06-16T11:51:00.000Z

A Brief Update On Events This Week

The landscaper has finally arrived and has started work on the upper middle section of the garden, we have been waiting since the middle of April for him to start work, but delays in his previous job and bad weather had put back the schedule. never mind work is now underway. The pond has been dug, the steps have been marked out and dug for foundations and the area to be lawned has been roughly levels.

Things are starting to look up, the garden will start to look as if it is almost complete. The bottom end still needs work but that area is generally obscured by the slope and planting, so doesn't look too bad from the house. Pictures of progress will soon follow.

2003-05-19T11:10:00.000Z

Vandal Fears Prove Unfounded At Chelsea Flower Show

When Chelsea Flower Show exhibitor, exhibitor Graham Bowman found parts of the "21st Century Cottage Garden" stand trampled and a trail of potato chips left behind, fears of vandalism quickly came to mind. The fears heightened when two other stands were found to have also been vandalised. In all cases traces of food were found in the vicinity including a packet of uneaten prawn cocktail crisps.

Fearing the worst, organisers rushed to investigate the crimes, but minds were put at rest when the culprit was found to be an Urban Fox.

2003-05-13T10:34:00.000Z

All My Life's A (Paving) Circle (May 2000 - October 2000)

Onto the next stage, it was time to build a patio, we had decided on a stone circle in Calder Bronze (it's the colour in the top left photograph), edged by brindle paving bricks, surrounded by a golden gravel which in turn was edged with more brindle paving bricks. This was to the left hand side of the decking, to the front of the decking we decided on a half circle of Calder Bronze paving sourounded by a half cirle of golden gravel, and both edged with brindle bricks. To the right was a simpler affair as with we had less flat land to play with a small centre piece of the centre of a Calder bronze paving circle was surrounded by gold gravel which in turn was edged by a quarter cirlce of brindle bricks. So the effect was almost a line of curves getting closer to the line of the house as you moved from one side to the other. Pauline who is normally good with the interior design etc. had her doubts and couldn't visualise it, whereas I, who hadn't a clue when it came to design had this idea firmly set in my mind and promised faithfully that it would work.

To save money once again, we decided to lay the patio ourselves, I found a leaflet at B&Q giving guidence on how to estimate how much sand, cement and gravel required for the job and got ready to place the order with Mainsway Builders Merchants in St Helens. So on the Saturday before the Whit Bank Holiday we had the paving for the circles and 404 brindle paving bricks delivered along with one tonne of grit sand, and numerous bags of cement, all ceremoniuosly dumped on the drive and so began the heavy work of moving stuff to the back if only to give some access to the garage for our cars.

I had already dug out the area where the circle bases were to be laid, so we spent the following weekend mixing grit sand and cement in the ratio of 6/1 the hard way in a wheel barrow and then tipping the dry mix, into the prepared holes and finally leveling off, ready to take the paving. It was bloody hard work and by the time we'd finished I realised we were going to need more cement for the morter to lay the slabs. My calculations were out already. The stone circles and half circles were laid the following weekend after purchasing more cement. The whole project was joint effort between Pauline and myself. I might add that she was working like a slave, helping in the mixing of the concrete and morter.

It was now time to prepare the rest of the area to receive the gravel and brick edging. It was at this point that Pauline questioned my estimate for 4 tonnes of gravel, "I think that's far too much" she said. I showed her my calculations and how I'd worked it all out, but she was still adamant that it sounded a lot, so we settled for 2 tonnes, instead, If we needed more, then we'd have to order more later. That sorted we arranged delivery from Ainscough Building Supplies in Wrightington, one and a half tonnes of gravel, loads of bricks and sheets of weed suppressant material later we had the top part of the 'meadow/field' sorted. That was most of the major hard landscaping done for 2000. So Pauline was right I had way overestimated the amount of gravel needed, it was partly down to planning to dig out double the depth of earth, in the areas the gravel was to be laid, than I finally actually removed. The remainder of the unused gravel was used to create a border strip on which to stand patio plants in the front and shady side gardens.

For the rest of the year we started to slowly develop and plant a border down the left hand side of the garden. It was filled with bargains found in plant sales specifically from a small lock-up near where I worked in Sale. They had deliveries every Thursday and always had a couple of bargain plants on offer. I bought something every time I passed the shop. From Dwarf Rhododendrons and Choisia 'Mexican Orange Blossom' to Lavender, Euphorbia, Clematis, Honeysuckles and Osteospurmums, if it was cheap I bought it. Numerous friends helped by donating cuttings and plants that they were splitting and otherwise getting rid of. The border slowly started to fill.

Everytime we looked at what what was left to do, the feeling of 'this will never be finished' would overtake us. There was so much to do and we had limited spare time to work on the garden ourselves. We had completed what we had set out to achieve in our first summer, so settled down to enjoy our spare time a bit more, and plan and save for the next years project.

That isn't to say we did nothing more during the year, as there was enough to keep us going, keeping the weeds down extending the path along the side of the house, linking the front to the back garden. It was doing this work that I ricked my back, and trapped a nerve which caused a fair bit of pain when walking any distance or doing any heavy lifting, this was when I eased my gardening into the pottering about stage, so as not to aggravate the problem.

I'll try to scan in some pictures of the circles and maybe partially complete borders, as progress developed, later. I think I've got a couple still knocking around somewhere.

2003-05-11T19:59:00.000Z

Gardeners Adage

Old gardeners never retire, they just get composted.

2003-05-04T18:32:00.000Z

The Start Of The Project circa December 1999 To Mid May 2000

Following our wonderful governments various raids, for cash, on our various pension schemes, our house and garden have potentially become one of the main sources of income for our future retirement fund. Therefore it is wise for me/us to ensure that all is in pristine condition ready for any future sale, when we can then cash-in, by moving to a smaller and cheaper home, thus releasing some surplus funds for use in our retirement.

We moved into the house at the end of 1999, it was a new build by Alfred McAlpine homes, and one of the few on the whole estate with a large plot of land attached, which is very rare on new build properties these days. Whilst the builders had layed a lawn and some borders to the front garden, the rear was left in it's original state, all be it, churned up like a ploughed field, by the various builders vehicles that had driven, backwards and forwards, over it during the construction phase. The landscaping and reparation to the rear of our and indeed all the properties, was left to the buyers.

Having moved in the winter months we did nothing to the garden until the spring of 2000. At that point we decided the first thing to do would be to provide at least a hard landscaped area to the rear of the property, so that at least we could sit out on warm days and enjoy a bit of sun, or have a barbecue or something. Moving much beyond the area we were working on at that stage left us open to the danger of sinking to our 'wellie' tops in mud.

With the plan set, I spent a couple or three weekends in May building a decked area outside of the patio doors. My first attempt at anything in the carpentry field since my school days, and I have to say I wasn't very good with wood back then. Having said that, armed with a cordless drill/screwdriver, various bits of tanalised wood, and endless DIY, How To Build Decking, leaflets, not to mention endless beverages served by Pauline I set about the task. The end result was a surprise to everyone, it looked ok, it was solid, and is still in one piece with no signs of falling apart today. Round one to me.

The Finished Decking

2003-04-30T11:39:00.000Z

The Grand Opening Of Garden Muse

Welcome to my new blog, "Mike's Garden Muse". The idea for the blog came to me after a long period of searching for a theme for my blog: Mike's Random Muses, which as the title suggests was intended to be a hotch-potch of ideas and thoughts that came to me on a day to day basis. Eventually I decided to keep the more random nature of the original blog intact and start afresh with the themed blog.

The idea of this blog is to give a little history and background, to the development of our back garden, from the mud heap that it was, when we moved into our brand new house in 1999, to the present day. Once the history of the garden has been covered, then the blog would be updated, on a possibly less frequent basis, with news of it's on-going development.

Neither myself or Pauline (my partner) are experts in the field of gardening, but we have attempted numerous projects which would never have thought of doing before the purchase of our property. I hope you as a reader will find the blog interesting, funny and maybe sometimes even informative, as you share in our successes, disasters and even our battles with the council planning department.

The garden at this stage is far from finished, and is likely to be unfinshed for a long time yet, but here's a little snippet of a page, showing the current state as at April 2003, to be going on with, whilst I type up a history for future publication.

In the mean time please have a virtual glass of bubbly to celebrate the grand opening of this blog. Be sure to let me know what you think by clicking the 'Shout Out' link below.