Proserpina's Patch

Just in case anyone has missed it, I finally have a garden of my own! After several years container gardening and 16 months of windowsill gardening (plus a brief foray into growing in the ground in a very rubbly rented back garden in summer 2020), I have a garden that is mine to dig (or more likely not dig), plant, and put to work however I see fit. It's very exciting, and I hope to document my progress here. 

Unfortunately, as much as I would just like to now spend all my time in the garden, I'm a bit limited right now by a number of factors:

1) It's very cold!
2) My gardening things haven't moved in with me yet so I don't have my gardening gloves or my own tools just yet
3) There's a whole house that also needs lots of attention (and that's the bit that will fall down in expensive ways!)
4) I broke my finger
5) It's dark when I get home from work, unless I'm on nights
6) If I'm on nights, I'm not doing much except sleep during the day!
7) I have a post-graduate exam coming up

Still, I've spent some time pottering around and generally admiring the garden, and musing about what to do next.

I think I have around 95 square metres of usable space at the back, including the greenhouse and an area for compost. The back of the house faces south, but the garden has a gentle slope towards the house so may not catch quite as much sun as a flat south-facing garden. It has three tiers: there's a concreted/paved patio area right by the house. That's pretty small. Then there's a flat lawned area with a border. It's protected from the wind on all four sides as it's surrounded by the house, a fence, a retaining wall, and the garage but it may also be a bit shaded at the far end by the retaining wall. The retaining wall has a steep slope and is currently being used as a rockery, though it's become rather overgrown with grass as it wouldn't have been safe for my elderly vendor to climb up and down. The top tier is the longest and is the part with the gentle slope towards the house. It's mostly lawn, but there's a path down the middle, ornamental borders either side, a shed, a greenhouse, two gravel-filled raised beds, and a rather wild area behind the greenhouse and shed.

There's also a very damp detached garage that needs lots of work, is being invaded by ivy, and has rotting/broken windows. However, I have hopes that it may one day make a very nice potting shed.

My vendor has moved to a retirement flat without a garden, so very kindly left me lots of gardening equipment and containers. More on these later!

Pictures hopefully to follow shortly.

Finally getting round to posting some photos! It's a bit complicated as I don't have proper home WiFi currently, so my mobile phone is chewing through data and my laptop is connected to a mobile broadband dongle. I take photos with my phone then have to wait until I'm somewhere with WiFi to back them up. Then I can download them from my back-up onto my laptop, resize them and upload them to post here. A bit of a palaver, which is why I haven't posted many pictures so far!

These were taken in late December and give a broad overview of the main parts of the back garden.

This is the garden as seen from the back bedroom:

   

This is looking up from the bottom:

   

This is the bottom soil level (there's a lower patio level closer to the house and around the side):

   

This is the rockery/retaining wall between the two soil levels (currently rather overgrown - I have visions of growing squash at the top so they can cascade down the rockery):

   

This is standing above the rockery looking back at the house:

   

This is the area behind the garage:

   

And this is the area behind the shed and greenhouse:

   

What a lovely character to that garden Pros! I love it

Next up are some of the existing structures.

My greenhouse:

   

And from the side. The potting tables, pots and tools in there were all left for me by my vendor:

   

You can see the paving is a little wonky!

   

The shed has some rotten wood at the back:

   

And the roof/surrounding area need some work!

   

There are a couple of raised beds (and lovely big decorative containers!):

   

   

And a rather overgrown cold-frame in need of either removing or a new covering as the current glass isn't tempered and has crumbled around the edges:

   

Next up, some tools, etc that my lovely vendor left behind to help me get my garden off to a good start (some people think I was doing her a favour by agreeing to keep stuff, but she used a removals company who specialise in getting older people into retirement properties, so they would have happily just shifted everything to the local dump for her if she hadn't made the effort to save things for me).

The water butt:

   

I should be able to squeeze a few more into the garden, I think. I reckon one from the greenhouse, one from the garage, and at least one from the house - maybe one at the front and one at the back?

Inside the greenhouse, there were lots of pots, tools, watering cans, etc. Some things are in great condition, some things not so much, but the vast majority of things are still usable and just need a bit of TLC.

   
   
   
   
   

There was a pair of men's boxers in there too - I am choosing to believe that they were old ones being used for cleaning. They haven't been kept for future use!

Then inside the shed, there was a barely used lawnmower, a lawn chair, a steam cleaner, various panes of glass, paint, a strimmer, and a few other bits and bobs:

   
   

Looks fantastic Pros, great getting all these gardening tools pots shed, GH ......

Oh, and feel free to post comments in this thread. My next post is probably going to be asking for help identifying plants!

Looks fantastic Pros, great getting all these gardening tools pots shed, GH ......

Yes, I was very excited about the greenhouse in particular. I do wish it was onto the ground rather than paving slabs, but I suspect it would be a massive hassle getting the ground level and I don't fancy shifting it around now!

The shed is staying for now, but I'm not sure about the long-term. It's not in great shape and I probably have enough storage space in the garage. Removing the shed would give me a big chunk of extra growing space and a bit more light. I'll wait and see how things go, but will probably review it again this time next year.

You're a very lucky Pros to "inherit" all those useful bits. Most of the the tools looks in better condition than mine.
Looking forward to guessing your plants

The spade and fork are a little bit rusty but well worth looking after. New aren't a patch on old ones. The nettles are looking quite healthy round the water butt.

I would probably take up the wonky paving at the side of the greenhouse and see if it is OK for strawberries or whatever (though squirrels might like that). If you had squash going down the rockery,it could be planted with soft fruit may be - or something.