Monday 19 September 2011

Garden

So if you've been wondering what I've been doing for the past few weeks, the answer is sweating over a garden. I hate gardening at the best of times, but this was ridiculous. A landscaper friend, Gideon and my brother basically whipped me along making sure the garden got done properly. The clay here is insanely hard -we used a pick and you were never sure if you had struck a hidden concrete outcrop from the building or clay - it was that hard. We hired a rotovator - like a mechanical plough to help us, but this was heavy work. About 9 cubic metres of compost later and 5 cubic metres of granite and bags of gypsum to break up the clay and the preparations are done. Gideon and R also put in drip and normal irrigation. The fence is up at last - already one of the neighbours complained to the Estate because it is dark not light as per the guidelines - seriously how sad is your life that the major issue in your life is the colour of your neighbour's fence? Get a life! Anyway... I will have some internal shots hopefully by next week. All my bookcases are in but labelling the bookshelves and setting them out is a work in progress and I am too embarrassed to post work in progress pics! Till next time -bye for now!


I should have gone with my first instinct and put down astro turf!!!

Endless moving of soil.
The rotovator aka Gideon's exercise machine.

The back of the house - awaiting decking, lighting, water features and grass. May not look it, but boy was this hard graft!

Ready for plants and turf
Taking shape - we chose the colour to match our garage door and gutters.

I better mention - Carmen and Kerry built all the flat pack stuff while little Abi 'helped' them. The long hall table on the right is actually an adaption - I removed the wheels - it is supposed to be a rolling table that goes over a queen sized bed so you can eat in bed or whatever.