The garden from scratch

Some before and after pictures.
I forgot to take the before photo until after I’d finished moving things and strimming it all.
This is the cottage garden this morning.

         

This is what it looks like this afternoon. 5 more beds have been outlined.

         

One of the beds is a little difficult to see in photos. It just looks like a patch of freshly turned (badly) earth . Under the living part of the holly tree. 

As always if I’m digging, skew is digging   

   

Are you sticking faithfully to your plan?

Are you sticking faithfully to your plan?

Overall design yeah pretty much. Rock edges , gravel paths, at least one perennial, herb, shrub, variety of bulbs in each bed. Actual layout was never written in stone. I tried drawing a plan of where all the beds were going yesterday. It didn’t go well! So today I drew out the beds on the ground with a marker spray can. Then adjusted again when it came to actually digging, where needed. Several times in a couple of cases     . My back and my shoulder are now well aware of my indecisiveness   

Dug the outline of 2 more beds today and marked a 3rd.
I had a lot of help with digging today.

   

Pleased big dog doesn’t help often. Because holy hell he can shift some dirt ! Not necessarily where you’d like it shifted from or too     . 
But as I had so much help and 2 rather large holes. I thought I need some where to plant my sunflowers. Thanks boys that’ll do. So I filled the 2 holes with old compost mixed with BFB and plant food pellets and very carefully planted out 10 sunflowers. Then realised I can’t actually fill that bed properly now so I might as well plant the rest of the sunflowers. 
Bob came home just as I was finishing. Asked what you planned in there? All Sunflowers. What even the ones with lots of leaves. That would be clumps of sunflowers     .

   

Next year that will be my perennial cut flower bed. Made up properly with the rock surround and some compost and manure dug in before planting. This year it’s had nothing done to it and it’ll be a very hopeful sunflower bed.