Helen's Garden Renovation Project

After my last post, I had one more mild, dry day, in which I laid two more stepping stones and dug the hole for the next one. The next day it rained pretty much all day, so I went to B&Q to buy more sand and cement. I estimate I am getting through slightly less than one bag of sand for each stepping stone, so I bought four more bags. I was busy all day on Friday and Saturday on other things, and in any case, it rained quite a lot on Friday. Today, however, I spent about an hour digging holes and choosing my pieces of rubble foundation for the final three stepping stones. It was only just above freezing, and we have some harsh temperatures coming up, so it would not have been wise to do any mortaring. At least I am now ready to get going as soon as more spring-like conditions turn up.

Tomorrow, the temperature is forecast not to get above freezing, so I have taken a picture of my beautiful early rhododendron before it goes brown.

Early rhododendron just beginning to get going before the frost tonight

Today was the warmest day of the year so far, and I decided that it was the first day of spring because I saw my first brimstone butterfly of the year.

Yesterday and today I was able at last to get on with mortaring the log effect stepping stones in place. As these are about a third of the size of the square ones, it was a much easier job. As the great tits shrieked, “Teacher! Teacher!” I laid four stones over the two days. It was quite hard to get a good picture because it was so sunny, but here’s my best effort.

First four log-effect stepping stones

The black plant trays are there so I could put them on top of the stepping stones after photographing them. This reminds me not to walk on them. I find it very hard to remember otherwise. It’s possible that tomorrow may be another dry day, and I may be able to get another two in place, and then I will be more than halfway there. I am so looking forward to being able to plant things in the area.

My plan to get on with the garden while I am only half employed has not worked. This is partly because most of February has been cold. Not dramatically cold, but persistently only just above freezing during the day. So I have been unable to do any more mortaring, or indeed, very much at all. Today I realised it was almost the end of February and if I didn’t get a post in, I would have missed out a whole month.

So I went out and inspected the bulbs I have planted in the Residents’ communal areas.

Snowdrop from a dry bulb

Early dwarf iris

It has been well known for a while that snowdrops planted from dry bulbs don’t work. The RHS now advises that planting them in the green doesn’t work either. It’s amazing that anyone has any snowdrops at all. Fortunately, the 15 snowdrops that I bought from Wilkinson’s haven’t read the advice. Only one has flowered, but as far as I can tell, all or nearly all of them have produced leaves.

I then spent an hour or so tidying up my rubble collection, sweeping up the crumbs and leaves. I have chosen the rubble which I want to use under my log effect stepping stones and taken most of the rest to the dump. Since my last post I have laid the last of the square stepping stones. I have decided that I want to install the log effect stepping stones myself, but I definitely need someone to install the six square stepping stones down the left hand side of the garden. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find anyone who is interested yet, because it is such a small job.

It’s now getting more urgent that I finish off the stepping stones, for two reasons. One is that the plants I ordered from J Parkers have arrived.

Plants from J Parkers

I have received: a Daphne Odora Aureomarginata, Hebe Heartbreaker, Japanese Azalea (free), 12 cascading begonias (also free), 5 Gallery Lupins, 10 heathers, 20 Phlox subulata and 6 Thymus Serpyllum. The Phlox and the Thymus are for planting in between the stepping stones. I don’t really know exactly where I am going to put all the plants, but ideally I need to plant them at the end of March so I need to make a decision.

The other reason is that I have now got a job, working for Hampshire County Council in Winchester. I don’t have a start date yet, but when I start, I will suddenly find myself with virtually no spare time again. So I am really hoping that next week the temperatures will perk up and the rain will hold off, and I can do as much to the garden as possible.

I have taken advantage of the not-very-wet and not-very-cold weather to lay two more stepping stones. This is the result:

Three of the four stepping stones in place

This is quite a flattering photograph, but I am afraid that this installation will add character to the garden, rather than beauty. The slab nearest you is lower than the other two. This is deliberate, and I did it because the greenhouse base is lower than the lawn edging, so the stepping stones need to go up. I will be aiming to get the last three slabs the same height.

With experience, I have modified my technique. With the first paving slab, I mixed water into the mortar. With the second two, I used the mortar dry, acting on the theory that it would absorb water from the soil around it and harden anyway, without me having to add any water. This saves labour, and also means that it’s not so messy trying to get the foundation level. With the first and second paving slabs, I buried some assorted rubble and tamped it down with a thick wooden post. With the third, I just dug out the soil to a depth of 4 cm and jumped on it to make it flat.

I also used a different system of levelling with the third slab. I discovered that my short spirit level was pretty much exactly the same thickness as a paving slab. So I hammered in some pegs that were at the right height for the top of the slab when the short spirit level was on top. Then I laid the mortar to make it level with the pegs. Then I watered the back of the paving slab and laid it. It wasn’t at the right height so I took it up, moved the mortar about, and watered it again. After I had done this several times, there was probably quite a lot of water in the mortar.

I have discovered that it is not necessary to make the bed exactly the same size as the paving slab because once it is in position, you can shove leftover mortar underneath the edges. I have also discovered that tapping the paving slab with a mallet seems to have no effect on anything. I think maybe it is just a ritual you do so that your neighbours know you are laying paving slabs.

Tonight freezing weather is forecast, so I have put some bubble wrap over the paving slab I have just laid. And I think it is unlikely I will be able to lay the fourth slab until the cold spell is over. That’s a shame.

As a result of my work, I have concluded two things: (1) I am pretty confident that I will be able to lay the round log-style stepping stones competently enough, as they will be so easy after doing the big square ones; (2) If at all possible, I should get a professional in to lay the last six paving slabs, as they will look terrible if they are wonky.

Suddenly we got a mild day with no rain forecast, and so it was time to lay the first stepping stone. I had already dug the hole for it. I hammered in two pegs (small pieces of Leylandii branch) to mark the level of the top of the slab. Then I buried some rubble from the path that I broke up, thumped it with a piece of wood to compact it, filled in the gaps with smaller pieces of rubble and soil, then compacted it again. I put a layer of sharp sand down, and compacted that. Then I made some mortar in the ratio 4 litres of sharp sand to 1 litre of cement, and put it on top of the sand.

At this point I realised that I was going to have to make an awful lot of mortar. I read somewhere that a good depth was 5 cm of mortar, and that’s about what I put down. I made five batches using 5 litres of dry mix and it was hard work. But I did it. I used my small spirit level to make sure the mortar mix was level, and then put my paving slab down, and it did come to the right height. But it wasn’t level! I felt very aggrieved about that, given that I had thought my foundation was level. Tapping the highest bits of the slab with the mallet in the hope of making them a bit lower made very little difference, so I had to lift the slab and scoop out bits. Eventually I decided that it was good enough, and that the slab had an uneven surface so was never going to come out perfectly level anyway. I stood a few feet from it and looked at it carefully and decided that it looked perfectly all right, which is the only test that matters.

I was thinking of laying a second slab tomorrow because the weather may be all right then too, but I think I probably won’t. One reason is that my wrist and back are a bit tired from today’s exertions. Another is that I want to make sure the paving slab is set so if I stand on it, it won’t matter. But the main reason is that I want to see whether my job is good enough quality – will the slab stay put without wobbling or not?

I am pretty sure I over-engineered this stepping stone. I could do all the others the same way, but it’s a lot of labour and a lot of materials. Next time I will use more rubble and about half the amount of mortar.

There wasn’t much point in taking a picture of the stepping stone because it just looks like a stepping stone, but so that this entry can have a picture, here is an overview of the mess the garden is currently in.

Overview of the garden in January

The stepping stone I laid is at the extreme right of the picture, next to the green plastic pot. You will notice that there are a lot of white bags. These are the charity bags that come through my door every few weeks and they are all full of leaves. I will have to find another home for the leaves because the plastic in the bags doesn’t survive being outside for very long.

Actually, scrub that last entry. So far it is not particularly good for the garden that I have been made redundant, because I am now thinking that I will have plenty of time in the New Year and therefore don’t have to make too much effort now. But in my defence I will say that the weather has been normal for the time of year; i.e. either it is freezing, and too cold for making mortar, or raining, and too wet for making mortar. As all future development depends on the stepping stones being in place, this means no progress has been made on the garden directly. I have, however, been working hard on tidying up the garage, which eventually will enable me to find all my tools and other things which have been buried under layers and layers of disorder, thus making it easier and cheaper to get on with things as soon as the weather gets more reasonable.

Today it was a bit damp but sometimes sunny, and I confronted the leafiness of the shallow pond.

Leaves in shallow pond

I have been getting the leaves out with a sieve, which sounds much easier than it actually is. I think a coarser sieve would be easier to use because the water would drain out faster and the holes would take longer to block up with blanket weed. There are now fewer leaves in the pond than the picture shows, but it’s still too many.

The callicarpa, which is still in pots, has been happily berrying. This picture is slightly over-exposed but still very purple.

Callicarpa berries

The Garden Renovation Project has just had its best news since the project began – I have been made redundant from the day job and will be leaving just before Christmas. Obviously this means that I have much more time available to make Progress. It also means that I will have to start adding to this blog little bits of evidence of how good I would be in a new job, just in case any potential new employers start reading it to get some information about me.

I have started preparing the holes and foundation for the stepping stones, but the weather keeps being unsuitable. Either it is too cold, or too wet. I suppose this is what you would expect for November. The forecast for today was looking promising, but as it was still drizzling at nine o’clock and the sky looked very grey, I decided to postpone the task, thus displaying a flexible attitude and using my common sense. I cleared some more of the leaves up instead. There is a hole in my gardening gloves, but I am not afraid to get my hands dirty.

This week it has been dry some of the time, and on Monday and today I took the path foundations up. I was lucky – the foundation mix was very soft. It must have been at least 5 parts of sand to cement. Each section took only a few taps with the pickaxe to remove, and now, apart from needing to remove the crumbs, the job is finished. The temperature on Monday was ideal for heavy work – just a few degrees above freezing. Today it has been much milder and indeed, a bit warmer than was comfortable.

The path foundations broken up and stacked into piles

I also made a bit of progress on chopping up the remains of the bay tree, and gathered up some of the leaves. The beech tree next door, whose leaves they are, is now almost bare, so it will be worth putting in the effort next week to get rid of more leaves.

This is a significant milestone, because I have now undone all the things that I now think I did wrong when I had my first stab at making the garden, fifteen years ago. All the hard landscaping has been disposed of and all the plants that were in the wrong place have been dug up. From now on, the only way is forward. Unless I make some new mistakes, of course.

So I now find that the next job is to lay the first four stepping stones. I have the hardcore (lots), cement and sand and there are only three possible reasons for delaying the job. One is that my forearms are a bit trembly from all that pickaxing and lifting heavy bits of mortar, and need a rest. The other two are the weather: heavy rain, or a temperature that is too cold for making mortar.

Every time autumn comes along, I realise I have forgotten about the sheer quantity of leaves that come down and which I have to get rid of.

Leafy overview of the right hand side of the garden

Since my last entry, I have filled in the hole left by the bay tree (near enough) and taken up the slabs of the path. I still need to break up the foundation – after removing the leaves.

I was not expecting a lot of autumn colour from my new plants, because they are so young, but one of my blueberries has gone a beautiful mixture of purple and red.

Red leaves on blueberry

The Euonymus europaeus Red Cascade has not managed any winged fruits, but is making a noticeable attempt to wear this autumn’s colours.

Euonymus colouring up for autumn

So, my tasks for November are to get rid of the leaves, chop up the bay tree into manageable pieces, and break up the path foundation. As usual, whether or not I achieve these will depend on the weather.

Today I finally finished murdering the bay tree, and what a job that was. It was often raining while I was tackling the roots with my loppers and saw, but there was shelter from the huge beech tree overhead, and it was hot work, so I think any drops that landed on me evaporated pretty quickly.

The bay tree, uprooted

I still have quite a bit of work to do, sawing up the stems into manageable pieces, getting the rootball out of the hole, and filling up the hole. I have managed to fill up the hole where the temporary pond was, so now I just have to fill up the hole left by the bay tree. This month I was hoping to take the path up as well, but that may still be possible if it doesn’t rain all the time. It will be easiest if I can fill the hole first and cover the area with plastic so that the fragments of rubble from the path are easy to sweep up.