SuburbanGaze

Five challenging years of studying towards a degree whilst working full-time have ended this week with my last examination.   I have treated myself to this Acer 'Shaina' and a beautiful cube blue container. This promises to be a low-maintenance and compact tree with stunning red foliage in the autumn season.   I am very much looking forward to watching this grow and have located it by the French Doors where I can see it each morning.

I cannot begin to convey the amount of manual work we have both done in the garden to-date. We have uncovered several hundred meters of weed-suppressing material which was under several inches of heavy clay soil all around the garden.  We also found it beneath the stone circles in the lawn and the makeshift rockery to the left and another planting bed further down containing a Lilac Tree. Much to our neighbours dismay as she loves it, we have ripped this tree out - it reminds me of the weeds that you see growing rampantly on waste ground. (usually in the vicinity of train stations within the UK)  Along the right-hand border hidden beneath the landscaping material we have found a concrete path the full length of the garden.  This is made up of huge rectangle patio slabs and then further down, hollow breeze blocks - so incredibly heavy.  These have been filled with large pebbles mixed with liquid concrete prior to being placed in the ground. Beneath the concrete path is

We are in agreement that we would like to begin creating a garden that is wildlife friendly. To this end we have retained some of the thinner wooden logs from the felled trees and stacked them at the bottom of the garden where they can stay undisturbed to slowly decay.   This Log Pile will hopefully be a magnet for insects, frogs and other wildlife.