Our Garden; A History: Part 3

Garden Girl surveys the remnants of our mound of branches and watches cars through the holes in the fence

At the end our last installment of Our Garden; a History we had completed our herb bed. This was back in the summer of 2007. Buoyed on by this success we were ready to start working on the rest of the garden. The first thing we had to do was clear away the large bushes and trees at the bottom right of the garden and the concrete at the bottom left.

We roped in some much needed help. When facing a large task like this it really is the more the merrier. I quite enjoyed this task though. There is something immensely satisfying about clearing away a large patch of ground and watching as the garden grows in size. And Garden Girl enjoyed playing with all the sticks, branches and leaves that now scattered the lawn. For months afterwards there was a mound of bush and tree debris in our garden as week by week we filled the green waste bin, until eventually all that was left were three large fir trees.

At this point Garden Girl and I retreated to the safety of the house and watched through the window as Garden Dad and Friend thrilled in the manly pursuit of chopping down trees. At about the same time, our neighbour brought in a tree removal firm to take down the many large fir trees in her own garden. Garden Girl and I, having observed the slow hack, hack, hack of an axe in our garden, were wowed by the swift fall of 8 trees in about 15 minutes. Our once dark, overgrown garden, now seemed much, much bigger and a lot lighter. The idea of growing vegetables seemed a lot more plausible.

But removing the trees was just the start of the work. Digging up the massive bush and tree roots was essential if we were to turn this area into raised beds. This was hard, hard work but by this time I was pregnant with Garden Boy, so the task was in the hands of Garden Dad. He worked on it gradually over the winter, making some headway, but working out there alone in the grey weather wasn't much fun so we moved our attention indoors.

Garden Girl was to get a new bedroom in order to make way for Garden Boy in the nursery. We all got our paint brushes out and while Garden Dad and I focused on the room, Garden Girl painted a canvas to hang on the wall. Our progress in the garden was restricted to planning. It was during this time that we decided our fences needed to become a top priority. There were holes in the panels at the back and the boundary fence for which we were responsible was in disrepair. Digging up tree roots would have to wait a while longer.

All we were hoping for now was to get the fences complete before Garden Boy made an appearance. We managed it, but only just and I will leave it to Garden Dad to tell you how they did it. I was too busy relaxing in the sunshine, pulling up the occasional weed when I felt the need to look helpful.