GREEN FINGERS: The Taming of an Unruly Back Garden

There's nothing better then starting the day off with some gardening a couple of times a week. I'm super luckily in being able to work out of the home, so to spend those quiet hours working away has been lovely in the last couple of weeks. With an August challenge to finish all the hard landscaping - the trimming the trees, straightening up the borders and getting rid of most of the unruly weeds, it's been a bit of a work out, not sure it'll all be cleared by September, but it's fun all the same.



So the before and after of the border in front of the decking after most of the unruly weeds have been pulled out. In a former life I think it was somewhat of a rockery - there's certainly a lot of large stones, but it's a damp and dark part of the garden, great for hostas mind. So far I've put in a homemade bird feeder and bird bath, both of which I hope to be sharing in the coming weeks once I get chance. Along the side of the decking you'll find half of the raspberries which need transplanting because where they stand right now, we can't get down the side of the house which is an issue when you have a chimney to fix. So as the autumn approaches we'll be moving the berry bushes and restraining the deck a lovely blue on our mission to add some colour other than green into the garden.



Jump to the other end of the garden and attention has been turned to clearing out overgrown shrubs, weeds and trees and turning it into the veg patch - I'm aiming to get some carrots, radishes and garlic in to start us off. This is where the other half of the raspberries can be found and where the others will be finding their new home. So aside from the berries and the hibiscus trees that I love the colour of, everything is getting cleared out. The above before and afters were taken after a hard mornings work but there's still a load more to do to the opposite side (shown below) what with a a random tree growing up in the middle of my raspberry brushes and some really overgrown Evening Primrose flowers.




Beside weeds there's not much else going on back there, we did try our luck on some out of season and therefore reduced dahlia and foxglove bulbs back in July. Apparently the dahlias couldn't care less that they should be coming to the end of their flowering season by now and are growing like no ones business, really not sure what's going on with the foxgloves. Ah well, worth a try either way.

Running along the back fence is an over run mass of ground cover. It's like ivy, but more in the form of a mini bush - i'm saying that because I have no idea what it really is. All I know is that it's a pain to pull up. It's awful. I hate it with a passion. Still I guess it's keeping the weeds out, but I want it gone. The garden still has things to uncover - pavers lost under 2 inches of soil, bricks, rose bushes in the shade of dead shrubs to wind chimes long knocked off their branches. As for the front garden, that's pretty much taken care off with lots of bushes and a gorgeous magnolia tree, but again there's no colour.

With autumn around the corner, it's been time to work out what needs doing before winter sets in - what needs moving and pruning but also the really fun stuff like how to get more colour in. Like I mentioned we're staining the deck a blue shade in the coming weeks and have plans for filling the borders with spring bulbs - daffodils, tulips and snowdrops to finally add some more life into the garden. Slowly working towards my pinterest fed dream of having an old Englishy style garden in the suburbs of Michigan.