I mentioned back in March that we’d had a design done for our garden, by Nigel Philips. We had the two guys from Southern Landscapes, an Eastbourne-based family firm, come to do the landscaping. They started well before Easter and endured all kinds of gruesome weather, including snow, but five weeks later the job was done. I have a ton of photos so I’m splitting this post into two. First of all, let’s remind ourselves what the garden looked like when we moved in two years ago…
View from the back door, February 2016Side gate and fence, February 2016
So, you get the picture! Now here we are in March this year:
Day 2 – sleepers for the terracing. In the end they needed about 30! On the right are the old raised beds (wooden frames removed) and the broccoli before it was lifted.
View of the back of the house and the old concrete path, which the landscapers broke up to use as hardcore when building the terracing. On the lawn are some of the rocks they had to remove.
Day 3 – starting to build the new terracing
The cats disappeared every day when the men were here, then came out every evening to investigate. Here’s Bobby & Dolly greeting each other. The broccoli had been removed by now, but all this rich soil got reused in the new terracing.
Day 6 – looking back from the top of the new terracing. The buddleia which we never liked (and blocked the light for other plants) lies unceremoniously on the ground. We put all our pots temporarily in the lowest terrace bed, by the gate.
Here’s the niche that Nigel (the designer) gave us! It will be a focal point when you look out from the back door. What will we put in it??
A general view – the lawn had to go, as we knew it would get trashed anyway. You can see the preformed pond liner ready to be fitted. At this stage it was a constant fight against bringing mud into the house!
Rocks piled up on the lawn. In the end the majority were re-used – to mend the remaining rockery walls, to build the pond surround and elsewhere in the communal garden.
The landscapers built a lovely new wall to encase the pond…
… and created a new rockery behind it
Here’s the path at the back of the house, with the edge of the new path marked out.
Day 12 – ugh!
Day 12 – Nick on the main patio after all the old tiles had been raised.
Day 15 – the paving and bricks are here, the path edges are built and it just didn’t seem to stop raining…
We couldn’t wait to put some plants in the pond, including a lily which we’re told will send its leaves to the surface over time to form lily pads
Day 18 – the path at the back of the house has a dwarf wall between it and the lawn
Day 20 – the brick path around the terracing is laid, and looks lovely!
The second (eastern) patio is down, cut very neatly around the pond. Now you can see where the pergola will go.
Day 24 – The start of the new main patio, using sandstone called ‘Fossil Mint’…Day 25 – view from the top looking down on the new main patio…
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