The only photograph I can find of how it used to look is this one of Trigger helping us out with the clearance work. As you can see it was definitely a field, and not a well-maintained one. Our neighbours have told us it hadn't been touched in eleven years, and before that was grazed by donkeys. The biggest change has been taking down the wall that separated the house and garden. This was both the end of the old dry stone wall (very tumbled down and covered in ivy) and a small concrete wall. Removing it has really opened up both the garden and the area in front of the house. We've planted a mixed hedge of hazel, copper beech, laurel etc. all around the garden to give us some additional privacy. This was a pretty challenging bit of gardening, involving Brian getting his biggest breaker out to smash through the rocks! |
Sitting on the swing seat, bathed in yet another day of beautiful sunshine, I can finally say that our garden looks like a garden now and not a field. One area was particularly challenging and a bit of investigation soon showed us why, a big broken slab of concrete along the right side of the garden and going under the wall. We dug this out and put in a flower bed, edged with some old cart wheel rims. We found these making the top and bottom of a rusted old hay feeder in one of the fields. I'm really please with how it looks and can't wait until it is full of flowers. The middle of the garden, and the flattest area, had a large bare area from where the tent was pitched. We've surfaced this with wood mulch as a play area for Freya and splashed out on a cedar play centre since we can't just pop down the road to the park any more. If you're curious what that is in front, the garden had a small drainage ditch running across the middle of it which takes the water run-off from the drive and front of the house. Brian has dug this out to create a rill, which we plan to make into a proper garden feature by lining it and digging out a pond at the far end. So still a bit of work to do, but I'm really pleased with it so far.
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Laura Nash and Brian Brett's blog about our move to Ireland. Archives
December 2020
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