Hedge in!!!! - Third time's a charm

Third time's a charm they say and well they might do.
The pond still looks great and all the elves were busy while I was away. Peter Pan has been grinding away at the solar panel brackets - Everyone will be keen to help out just so we stop making so much noise!!!

The site is cleared Yeah!!!!
I know I've said that before but this time it really is.!!!

The glasshouse is unfortunately delayed, partly due to the Amdega triumphant showing at the RHS Royal Chelsea flower show this year. Can't complain when it's that very standard and all those extra features which are causing the delay and with the weather so amazing it's not that it's not eggerly awaited but the delay is softened somewhat.

Hard Digging day!!

Yesterday was a real hard digging day!!
Decided to dig out the foundations of the Glasshouse ready for the floor to go in before the glasshouse arrives.

I've said the glasshouse is arriving next week so many times that no one believes me anymore - but it is really really close now and we need to get the flooring in - drains and dolomite, sand, weed membrane and paving or flagstones - And the big question is should we try and get flagstones and all the benefits that that entails or should we use use small blocks!.

Anyway the plan was to get the pond in!!!
But first we needed to get the ground prepared - the top of the pond has to be level. When you think about it this makes sense. The water will float out to being level and the liner really has to be under water otherwise it will perish in the sunlight. So that means that the sides of the pond all have to be the same height. You may have noticed that the site is in general not that level and the part where the pond is is no more level than the rest of the site.!!!

This meant building up a considerable amount on the lower side. which meant a lot of manual hard landscaping - lucky we'd already decided to dig out around the foundations, which gave us a ready source of soil with which to build up the edges.

And all the stones, sharp bits and anything that might Pierce the lining had to be removed. take out one stone and another three appear.

Check out our facebook page with all the pictures and video of us stomping down the edges of the pond. Not sure how to put a link to the facebook page from here though. maybe send me an email and I'll send you an invite from the page.

LONG TIME NO SEE

Sorry for the long gap in posts.

Life got a bit hectic there for a while, trip to NZ and back followed by our long awaited party, but I seem to be back on track now.

And I’ve a new plan for consistent blogging. I commute twice a week to York for work so I’ve got 43mins morning and evening on the train – I usually work the morning 43 mins but by the time evening comes around I’m too brain dead to do anything in the evening – so as blogging doesn’t take that much energy I’ve decided to use that time to blog.

Saw our resident Robin again the other day – He really is resident. Took three separate tours of the garden on the weekend all with party guests – should have started charging!! The Hawthorn has almost finished flowering. And the new ‘ancient’ hedge seems to have stuck well and has greened up like anything.

Garden progress is amazing the sun has shone and there’s been a bit of heat in it – obviously while I was out of the country J. No I shouldn’t complain at all we had the most amazing weather all last week. I got sunburnt in London – who’d have thought!!! And then blue skies all week and right through until the big birthday BBQ on Saturday thankfully only started raining on Sunday and by then we were all saying how much we needed a bit of rain!!!!

Anyway we’ve had lots of developments. – Peter Pan and the lost boys have been super busy while I was away. And Wendy has put up a whole stack of pictures on our new Facebook page – so everyone can follow our progress in pictorial form!!! I’ll still put a few up here just to spice things up. But you should join up to our facebook site.

We’ve got the fruit trees planted – albeit some of them are still in a temporary spot and some desperately need pruning. BUT they look GREAT!! We even got some weed mat under the fence behind them and a layer of left over dry-stone-wall gravel to hold it down.

We’ve got the soft fruit all planted – albeit all in pots and some of them are too small and Thelma and Louise have already had to repot them. But they all seem to be doing great and have got super leafy since they went in.

Peter Pan and the Lost Boys dug the largest hole imaginable – actually seem to have gone a bit more than a foot below the bedrock!! It really is impressive. I keep saying be careful what you say in front of Peter Pan it just might happen before you’ve had a chance to rethink it. Anyway the hole is now looking super professional – nicely lined with breeze blocks and all topped off with railway sleepers so that unsuspecting intruders don’t fall in – hope they can get the top off to put the water tanks in. Looks like we’ll have a water system going before long. Thanks to the co-op bank for the £1000 towards getting us sustainable water on site – plus BB guys for giving us the blocks at super cheap price.

On top of that we finally got all the stone cleared off the site – I know we love the stone but there was so much stone we couldn’t see the site and I swear there are some pieces of stone that must have been shifted two dozen times!! He site is not quite but almost level.

The big progress though is the POND!!! The pond is now a real hole in the ground – obviously it doesn’t hold water yet. And the large crack in the bedrock is a bit of a worry – given the mining history of the region. But in general it’s all progress and we can really start to see the shape and form of the garden. You can see where the pond is going to go and the shape and depth of it. And we’re already to start smoothing off the rough edges this Saturday – the sun has even come out again!! :) . We’ve got sand, liner, felt and most of the plants already to be assembled.

Other progress. The glasshouse is getting closer and closer to completion and its sibling had a day out at Chelsea which is very cool!! Peter pan and at least one of his lost boys were busy laying out the centre line for the frame along the foundations – not quite as even, level or square as they might have been but still the footprint fits. And there seemed to be a lot of noise and clouds of white dust going up this morning when we went past on the way to the train station – so I think Big J might have been taking to the edges with a skill saw – hopefully the right edges. Sure it’s all fine. Anyway we think it’s about ready to arrive this coming week – I know I’ve said that before but now I really think it’s going to happen.

more progress

just been up to the Garden and the boys have been back and it looks as though the far end of the wall is almost done.

If you know where you are looking you can notice, but only just where each segment starts and ends as we used the thickest stone first... But only if you really know what you are looking for - if you are not intimately aquainted with the wall and you don't know what you're looking for you will just see the most beautiful wall in the world.

The hedge looks very much alive. It's really thick lets hop it grows. and grows fast.

Dry stone walling

20 tonne of stone makes a big pile of stone.

Peter Pan once again did a great job and Dunhouse Natural Stone came through for all the stone at half price.

It's cool stuff though - Dead Friar's stone.

Shifting 20 tonne of and stacking it neatly into a wall takes a bit of effort.

All the misc. things we've done

Sorry. We've been so busy that I've not posted for almost a month.
So I'll go back to where I left off and catch everyone up.

We've finished painting the fence - both fences - east and North - both lovely Green. I voted for the brick red - everyone else on the committee voted for the dark green - Democracy is a wonderful thing and the dark green looks great - needless to say the brick red would have been horrid - too dark and too red.

We've finally got all the paper work done for the CDENT application and we can start work and start drawing done the money as soon as we've found the 10% 3rd party contribution - anyone who has £1480 lying around that they want to contribute just let me know.

The big thing though has been the south wall - But that surely deserves a page to it's self...

The Glasshouse

I got asked today to tell again the story of how we came to have this fantastic glasshouse!! It is the most amazing story. We were sitting round the table having just submitted the first draft of the CDET application for the permanent planting, pond, raised beds and seating and I was running through the wish list and and the only major item left was the glasshouse. Some of the committee may have been on to their second glass of wine and suggested we try AMDEGA. Everyone but me and Peter pan thought this was a great joke - But me (because I had no idea who AMDEGA were) and peter (because he just sees these things as a challenge). "Why not? the worst they can say is no". Anyway we all laughed and the next day peter rang to ask if the company that makes conservatories and sunhouses for royalty and footballers wives would like to donate a glasshouse to our tiny little community garden in the North East. The marketing director laughed and said (and I'm paraphrasing secondhand here) "your timing is amazing! The Managing director just confirmed this morning that we are going to go back to our Victorian roots and start making Greenhouses again and my main job for this morning is to find a site to locate the prototype"