Before the Borders Garden

The garden prior to the Borders Garden was vastly different, it wasn't flat, had short hours of sunlight and occasionally had neighbours trampolines blown into it.

According to one neighbour it also hadn't been looked after for at least 10 years. Which meant some very unwelcomed plants had started to take over, the worst being some sort of horrible sharp bramble. 

While it looks lovely and green in the photo above the truth was that thick moss had started to take hold meaning that other plants were gradually being forced out. Including several very old and beautiful rose bushes. 

The steep sides combined with the soil type and moss also meant that much of it wasn't usable for weeks after rain, which in Scotland is a common occurrence. 

Due to the steep sides and high drops much of the work done on the garden was largely just to make it safe and useable. To do this I can split our time there into four parts, the greenhouse, fencing, decking and finally planting. 

The greenhouse was easily my favourite addition to the garden. We couldn't solve the lack of sunlight hours but we could help the plants in their early stages with a bit more heat. The greenhouse was a second hand bargain off Gumtree. It wasn't big or glamourous but it was exactly what we needed. The only complication we had was the foundations but a small amount of concrete later we had a wonderful little hotspot. 

We could finally grow tomatoes and peppers without having to worry about late frosts, one year it even snowed in June. It also provided us somewhere safe to store the less hardy plants during the winter. I'm sure most of us have lost plants to frost and know how heart breaking it can be. 

As mentioned, safety was an issue with the garden, in the above photo you can see the big drop from the grass to the driveway below. This wasn't good for adults and was certainly not practical for children. Therefore and partly thanks to the extra time granted by lockdown, we put in a a very strong iron fence. 

While most of this was installed using bolts and resin, it did give me a chance to do some welding. A much missed pastime from my youth. 

Finally, taking the lawn mower up to cut the grass was no longer a matter of life and death. 

Once the area had been made safe, we needed to make it usable, therefore we decided in put some decking in, which took much longer than I estimated. Part of the reason for this was the access rights, the top part of the garden had to be accessed through the neighbours patio. This meant that all soil had to be removed by hand. But several tonnes and many sore joints later was all worth it, especially with our first child on the way, the outdoor space was a necessity. 

We finally had somewhere to enjoy a summer BBQ and sit out to relax. 

In the above picture you can also see old carpet laid out on the slope, this was done to kill off the unwanted weeds and brambles. However before we got to that stage we had to take out the roses and store them in large plastic pots. The roses were over 40 years old so it was a gamble to put them under this stress but it actually gave us a good opportunity to feed them up and provide them with some much needed nutrients. By the time they went back into the garden they were much stronger and will hopefully last another few decades. 

I can happily say that we left this garden in a much better state than we found it. Considering the size of the garden it was very hard work and somewhat back breaking. But for those few hot summer nights, being able to sit outside and watch the bees going about their business, it was worth it.

We loved this garden but the desire to live in a more rural location was too strong so we moved to the Borders Garden. If I'm feeling nostalgic at some point I will put together a more detailed post on the many challenges we had in the old garden.