Wednesday, December 22, 2010

DECK the halls with...a white Christmas!

As promised in this blog I will be starting my DECK project however the weather here in England has been unusually cold and snowy for December, in fact the coldest December since records began!

I am pleased to say that our audience has grown recently with visits from USA, Canada and Vietnam...WOW!!
Now I know that Canada and USA can have exceptionally cold winters so our predicted -9 / -14 for Christmas eve might not be that cold for you but here it is unheard of so to wish you all a Merry Christmas and New Year here are a few 'winter' photos taken in the garden this week....

Snowy view from bedroom window...


My friendly Robin who is keeping guard of the feeders in this weather!...


The blackbirds have been stripping the berries from the hawthorn and pyracanthas...


Ah that Magpie again...I think the photos are slowly improving??...(for you photographers this is a hand-held shot at about 30mtrs using a 70mm-200mm zoom lens, aperture f2.8, ISO 320)


Finally the snow covered garden...


All hands on deck....

As promised here comes the gardening bit...I discussed the layout of the garden and raised patio areas in my last blog but will just remind you that the idea behind the deck was to bring it out level to the top of the pond and maximise the open views at the bottom of the garden. As it was to be built on two existing stone patios at different levels it required construction partly on batons fixed directly onto the slabs and part construction on a frame built on stilts. In my previous house I built a raised deck on stilts so felt comfortable with taking this build on but knew that I had to get the levels perfect so it would sit level with the pond and not look odd. As usual I will use photos to demonstrate the build of this feature...



20mm thick batons were fixed to the solid patio slabs and then deck boards screwed down onto these batons. 20mm were used as they allow air flow between the deck boards and concrete and should discourage unwanted residents from making home under the boards!! Note the post shoes were also bolted down to the slabs at this stage so that the deck boards could be cut around them so that less of the shoes are exposed making for a neater job.


I used 4meter long lengths of deck board, which had been hanging around a timber yard for a year or two. This worked out much cheaper and also gives more time for the boards to mature and leach out any unwanted chemicals. When building so near to a pond chemicals and preservatives can be a potential nightmare so where possible use untreated boards or as I have found well 'matured' boards! You can now also see the meter high drop off which will require a frame on stilts!


I needed all the help I could get for this project....but had to settle for some moral support from my best mate!


 Here is the frame under construction. I built it on 4" posts that were held in place by more post shoes bolted into the concrete floor again. Please note that I even used a spirit level!....however don't forget that you will need a slight drop on the deck to allow rain water to drain away. I also opted to run the boards parallel to the pond to reduce the risk of chemicals leaching out of the boards and straight into the pond!...


This deck is a big project and too much to put into one blog so I will leave it at this point and continue this build in my next blog when we will be getting all the boards on, sorting out steps and erecting posts and hand rails...

Once again I have many detailed pictures of all of my builds so please leave a message if you want to see further pictures or ask about specific points.

See you next time... **AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL**

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Wake up sleepers what a view!!!

Well here I am again, it is actually December and less than two weeks away from Christmas! This blog is taking us back to July 2010 when temperatures here were in the high eighties and the air heavy and humid... lovely!!.

Now last blog we got to the end of the pond build with fish safely in and enjoying their new home. Work at this stage was still only just beginning and I had plans in my head of a raised deck, opening up the view at the bottom of the garden amongst 101 other ideas which were spinning around in my head!

When ordering the sleepers for the pond I actually over ordered to make sure that I wasn't short on the build and to allow me extra materials for further landscaping etc. At this stage further landscaping is a bit of a make it up as you go along for me so with the dozen sleepers I set about using them to follow the wood theme through the garden and soften the impact of the sleeper pond. The house is set raised up from the garden which steps naturally from the house down to a raised patio (top of pond level) and then down again to a lower patio and then down another two steps to the lawned garden. I already had a plan of turning the raised patio into a raised decked area which would sit level to the top of the pond so it seemed that a sleeper feature further down on the lower level would lead you out into the garden using the same theme. With this in mind I built the following 'tropical' planter to act as an entrance to the rest of the garden. Once again I think pictures will demonstrate this better than words...


Raised planter constructed to mirror the pond construction and planted with tropical type plants such as Banana, Canna, Bamboo and Cordylines.


Once the plants started to grow this planter put on a spectacular display. Next year I plan to add further tropical planters and attempt to grow more 'exotic' plants.


A bridge too far....
To extend the wood theme further and tie the garden together the natural dip in the lawn was used to add a bridge and create a feature and a natural link to the lower part of the garden.


Three sleepers and four posts were bolted together and screwed down onto a wooden plinth each side of the bank...


Levels were made up with top soil and plants planted (irises, crocosmia and primula) grass seed sowed...


The finished bridge sits nicely in the lawn linking both areas together....


The view...

This may sound like the simplest of jobs pruning a few trees and taming an old hawthorn hedge? Generally I'm sure it would be but throw in a wobbly ladder, a chainsaw and a gardener who suffers from severe vertigo and you have recipe for a lot of blood sweat and tears!!!...I could now share with you my tales of hanging onto a wobbling ladder whilst a 30 foot branch tries it's best to knock me clean off but I think I've now learned my lesson and will leave it to the professionals next time!!...

I think the pictures say it all...
View before...


View after!!!!....we didn't even realise what a view we had until we opened it up so a real treasure to find!


Now what do you do with all those branches that you have cut down?...recycle them of course!...a future blog will go into this in more detail but here's an idea what you can do with you 'left overs'...
A 'left over' log and sleeper bench to admire your new view from!...don't you just love chainsaws!!


Next blog we will be starting the raised deck, so lots more hard graft and sweaty brows!!...

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

A grand home for any fish....

The pond continues....

Construction of my pond continued with more than it's share of problems. Having completed the sleeper walls I set about digging out the bottom of the pond which I thought would be easy....until I realised that the area which I had chosen for the pond must have been the builders 'spoil' heap when the houses here were built! There was so much broken rock and hardcore that I couldn't get a spade into it which then meant every shovel full had to be broken with a wrecking bar or pickaxe before I could actually dig it out! This took me a very long time as it was dug by hand! I also had to stop work for a period of time as I had a nest of ground bees in the pond base who luckily for me got fed up and left after a few weeks! Due to the amount of horsetail weed and stones which I feared could potentially puncture the rubber liner I added an 'unplanned' concrete base to the base and sides of the pond! The total project which I expected to take a few weeks ended up taking me from April-July!

The fish which are a mixture of Koi, Tench, Golden Rudd & Carp were stocked gradually over a six week period. The first fish went in at 5pm one day and at 5am the following day I awoke to find a big fat heron trying to fish them back out again!....Some improvised safety covers were designed and fitted rather quickly!...

The pictures below will hopefully demonstrate the build better than I can put into words...

Sleepers in place...digging starts...approximately 3' of soil and 'spoil' dug out by hand!
Digging complete, base and base sides concreted in... 
layer of sand added across base to help protect the liner...
Old carpet and pond liner membrane were also added to help protect the liner...
Liner laid in and pond starting to fill...
Water in...oak capping put in place prior to trimming off excess liner...notice plants added as early as possible to help the water mature...filtration unit is also running from as early a stage as possible...
Fish added....they seemed to like their new home...
Unwelcome visitor....waiting to empty the pond!...
Removable safety (& anti heron) covers designed and fitted....

Unfortunately I haven't space to include many of the photos which I took during the pond build. If you would like to see more detailed pictures of the build or a certain part of the build leave me a comment on here and I will attempt to include some more...

Pond Dimensions: 3mtrs x 3mtrs x 4' deep = 11250litres (2500gallons)

Next blog...what am I going to do with those left over sleepers?...and a room with a view...

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Brambles, clay and lots of graft!

Well here I am in November writing about a lot of hard work which took place in spring of this year! We have just had our first lot of snow and I have to say that all work in the garden has now stopped. The cold weather has made me sit back and take stock of all the effort put in this year. I hope that over the next few blogs the amount of work already completed  will become evident. Taking stock has led me to appreciate the massive variety of wildlife visiting our garden, in particular birds (the feathered type!) which are already showing their appreciation for my efforts! I've had the usual visitors but have a resident pair of green woodpeckers and was fortunate enough to see a Sparrow Hawk swooping down hunting for prey off of the feeders which I have placed in the garden. On the mad side I was happily watching my new feathered friends earlier this week when a coot flew into the tree at the bottom of the garden! Only yesterday I was also extremely lucky to see an Egret happily standing in our field, apparently just passing time! This is a very rare visitor here so a real treat. I ran and fetched my camera to get an even rarer photo only to switch it on and find the batteries were flat!...typical!

You will see that I have included an ever increasing list of birds which visit my garden to the side of this page. I am currently brushing up on my wildlife photography skills in the hope of adding some wildlife and bird photos as we go along....
Yes I know Magpies are easy to photograph but we have lots of  them this year and I have to start somewhere!


Back to the gardening...

Having moved in February I had pond fish 'on holiday' at a friends house and over 70 plants in pots at my parents house. As you can imagine my priority had to be to get my pond built and dig some borders. All sounded very simple so I set about passing a couple of hours digging a border to re-home my plants, I was getting the impression that they were becoming a nuisance stuck on my dad's vegetable patch! TWO days later I had just about managed to clear brambles, ivy, horse tail and just about every other horrible thing you can think of to expose my very heavy clay soil! Now I'd love to tell you how much compost, grit and sharp sand I dug into that border but to say that the gardening industry won't go bust this year will suffice!


(March 2010) Border dug, enriched and planted....brow furrowed and sweaty!




(August 2010).....Rewarded I would say?...


Back to March and concentration now had to be on the pond...So I built a shed!...Well I was fed up with looking for tools in packing boxes!


Operation Pond can now be managed from the new shed HQ...and I needed to be able to find the hammer!


From the above picture you will see the beginnings of the pond foundations and the oak sleepers used to build it. The plan for the pond was to build it out of oak sleepers which would be in keeping with the plans to use wood throughout the garden and to also keep costs and time down. Having built a 'few' ponds before I was happy to take this on however it would be my first 'sleeper' pond! Sourcing and the the fixing of the sleepers was new to me so the project really does now begin!

After much research I found http://www.uksleepers.co.uk/product-catalogue/New_Untreated_Railway_Sleepers to be a good price and having a good range of untreated sleepers which is required when building a pond. Delivery was spot on and my experience ordering from this company was very positive.

Moving the 3meter oak sleepers from the front of the house to the rear required the assistance of a 'very' good friend and between the two of us I think we strained every muscle known to man! I definitely still owe him one!

The foundations were dug by hand and filled with hard core and concrete so that the sleepers had a solid and more importantly level base to sit on. My next challenge was fixing the sleepers in place and reading up on the subject made me think that specified fixings were going to cost a lot of money, so I visited my local http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Structural/Builders+Metalwork/d210/sd2797 and picked up some heavy duty metal straps for a couple of quid each and some Timberlock bolts and screws. for anyone who hasn't used Toolstation before they are well worth a look for bolts and screws etc and are often half the price of elsewhere!

Sleepers were bolted together using Timberlock bolts through the ends and then braced using heavy duty builders straps as shown above. A cheap and effective way of securing sleepers.


With all the sleepers in place it was now just a matter of digging down a foot or three which should be easy...shouldn't it???.....

Next blog will include...digging, digging, digging...oh and much more, maybe I might finish my pond, it can't be that hard!!!!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Hello and welcome to my first blog

Hello and welcome to my first attempt at blogging!

Back in February of this year I moved house and was fortunate enough to be able to buy a place with a reasonable sized garden. Now I'm no expert on the gardening front but love being out there doing my thing! In fact I would say that I'm very much your average person who goes out to work and then enjoys family times. I certainly have no formal training in gardening and can't quote you all the names of the plants but love to have a go. I am particularly interested in the design and hard landscape of the plot which then allows you to get creative with different planting ideas and indeed different types of plants. I have also kept koi and pond fish for the last twenty years, and aspire to create a unique and fun environment for my family and others to enjoy.

Having already landscaped and planted two smaller gardens I felt the need for the challenge of a bigger plot and project. This desire and the requirement of more outside space for tiny feet (both two and four legged) actually inspired my families 'distant' move of 14 doors along the same road as we already lived in! Yes I know this sounds mad but the larger garden and the advantage of owning some land behind the property swayed our daring move! Youv'e heard the quote "If I could pick up my house and move it...." well this was about as near as we could get to this!

The house is located in Somerset and the rear garden is approximately 130' x 45' so a nice "good" size area. The garden is low lying so the soil is very heavy clay which hadn't been worked or enriched for many years. Other than extremely overgrown hedges and brambles it was laid mainly to lawn with a raised patio near to the house, basically a blank canvass!...Oh and I forgot to say absolutely full of the dreaded Horsetail weed!

(Here is a picture of the garden, as you can see basically boring and uninspiring!)



Now the whole point of this blog is to share with you my ideas and hard work to turn this patch of Somerset into a little oasis for my family and I...

Considerations which I had to include in my plans and design were as follows:

  1. Child friendly and interest
  2. Dog and pet friendly
  3. Construct a fish/koi pond
  4. Make safe and modernise the raised patio area
  5. Keep the sense of size and openness of the plot
  6. Create a sense of intimacy and different areas of interest in the garden
  7. Open up the country side to the rear of the garden
  8. Encourage wildlife in the garden
  9. Make it look nice
  10. My desire to use ALL types of plants from cottage garden to tropical jungle type planting!
  11. Use recycled material where possible
  12. Enjoy it!
Now this may sound like an impossible task to tie all these ideas into this size space but in February this year (2010) we moved into our new house and I started my new project!!!...

A good friend of mine having seen my previous gardens asked me to keep a photo diary of this one which has led me to this blog page and hopefully the unfolding of the design and build of my dream garden.

I hope that with my enjoyment of photography and some funny stories you will also be keen to watch my progress and add comments or more importantly advice and ideas as I go along. 

Photo of a bumble bee on a dahlia grown in an old wheelbarrow recycled from the hedge!


Welcome to Higgy's blog....the story has just begun!!

Next blog will include a shed, a pond and maybe more........