My history of gardening

In order to set the scene for future posts I think I'll take a little bit of time to go through my journey so far with each of my key topics. First up let's look at gardening.

My gardening history is quite a short one, only a couple of years long, and even then we are only talking the spring and summer months since there isn't a great deal to do in the autumn and winter (or if there is I don't know about it yet). There is a good reason for this, I've only stayed in a flat with a garden for a couple of years! Growing up I always stayed on at least the first floor or above so never had a garden of my own and even if I did I doubt I'd have a huge interest in gardening as a kid since my mum (who raised me) didn't show a particular interest in it.

It's kinda strange that actually. Despite not growing up around any gardeners or ever having a garden one of the things I really wanted when looking for my own flat was a place with a garden. Maybe it's just a case of me wanting what I've never had. Whatever the reason, 3 years ago I got one when I moved into my first flat with my then girlfriend (now fiancée and soon to be wife!) and it's a beauty:

The garden circa May 2010

Ok so she's not exactly 100 acres but she is good enough for me. I'd already made a few changes to the garden when the above pic was taken, putting down a few slabs at the entrance, tidying up the ones that were already there and adding some small stones for decoration and to make it easier to take the brown bin in and out. I was planning on parking my motorbike where the brown bin is in the picture but it was too much hassle getting it in and out of the small entrance and down the narrow path. A shame as well, if I'd managed to keep her there maybe she wouldn't have gotten stolen and set alight. Such is life though.

Here it is from another angle, I'd also planted several flowers all along the border at the side of the house:

May 2010

Nothing came through though and I vowed next year to learn more and to try harder.

So next year my garden was looking like this:

March 2011

You can see the lawn is in a bit of a bad way, covered in weeds and brown patches, the hedge is cut way back but it is still alive and well, the council cut it once a year for us and I think they got a little carried away last year. They also mow the lawn several times a year for us which is pretty handy.

So when I said I vowed to try harder I meant it, I even went so far as to measure the garden out and draw scaled plans of them! And a colour coded planting plan as well:

I didn't get everything planted that I wanted to but I did get quite a bit done. I didn't create the circle in the middle as I decided it would be too much of a nuisance for cutting the grass between it and the diamond but I did expand the square and remove the pampas grass from it. This time I also researched my plants before planting and bought some propagators to germinate them in first and pots to grow them in doors until I felt they were strong enough to survive the Scottish climate. Here is some photos of the process and the results:

And finally throughout all this I also made a wee cold box to try and grow tomatoes in, the box is good, not hole free but good enough, the tomatoes were rubbish:

2012 hasn't saw much action so far. I've been pretty busy with work and wedding related things but I have added in a bird house with several feeders to the middle of the garden and also got some professional help on restoring the lawn from GreenThumb (expect more on them and their great value for money service in another post). Here's a pic of the garden earlier this year:

February 2012

There has been some changes since then but they'll need to wait for another post, this one is already way too long. Hope you've enjoyed it though!