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.

The wild flower area. Still work in progress. But it’s getting there.

   

Hopefully it’s starting to look like a wild flower area. Rather than a bit of garden I couldn’t be arsed to strim / mow 

Another bed is in place now. Beds are getting named instead of numbered now. Especially as the beds are nothing like in numerical order. 
So this is the little bed 


1 + 2 flowers currant
3 wild bergamot
4 skimmia
5 french tarragon + chives
6 Veronica gentianoides
7 azalea red
8 Aquilegia clementine red 
    Aquilegia Elissa’s
    Aquilegia double pinks
9 bulbs? + hyacinth


   

It doesn’t look very impressive at the moment but hopefully everything will start growing now they’re all out of the little pots. 
Baby stoats is buried under flowering currant numbers 1. 
I still have to dig the moat round the outside edge. To help stop them drowning as well as stopping the weeds & grass encroaching quite so quickly.

The next bed in the cottage garden is coming along slowly.
This is the odd shaped bed.

   

This is what a bit of the cottage garden looks like from the road.

   

Still masses of work to do. But I think you can see the potential if you’ve got a good imagination.

I can see it!!....................and you know what my imagination is like.
You said you were naming the beds - what are their names please ?

A really good start SC, all your planning is paying off.

I can see it!!....................and you know what my imagination is like.
You said you were naming the beds - what are their names please ?

Beds that are actually in place 
arch beds 1&2
spiny thing 
chimney
little 
odd shape 

beds marked out are 
round 
rock 
holly 
eye 
crescent
cut flower 
oval 

probably another 4 to get marked out and named. Waiting for roofing tin to be moved.