Finally, something about the garden

I do realise that, of late, my posts have become more sporadic, and I've diversified into a spot of citizen journalism - well an attempt at it, anyway. All this at the expense of any substantial post about the garden.

The thing about my kind of gardening though, is that it's a great deal of slow burn. So it's quite possible for there to be no news for days on end. Although I learned last week that if I take my eyes off it for too long, then pests descend.

Anyway. I don't really have any substantial news. Just some photos of the products of our hard work, and one showing you the aforementioned garden insurgents. Brownie points to anyone who can tell me what exactly they are, and more importantly, how I can get rid of them.

Enjoy.....

From barking dogs to tree bark mulch

Moving from a gritty part of north east London to a garden city in the home counties was always going to be a life changing event for us. However, neither of us could have known the extent to which the perma-green of our new town would inspire us to do what seemingly every other resident of this town has done: to care for, and make beautiful, our garden.

As busy professionals both commuting daily, and with three young kids between us we don't have a huge amount of time to devote to our project, nor do we have any existing expertise in the green arts, beyond a few pansy growing attempts in our last dwelling. We take some of the advice we're given (from friends, books, TV etc. more on which later) but much of what we've done so far has been more of the Jamie Oliver approach - i.e. just throwing stuff together casually, but artfully, and hoping, feeling, it will, eventually look and smell good. So far, we've been really pleased with how things have turned out.

So this blog has two functions really:

It's a means to chart the progress of our garden city garden for our own sake.

BUT.....

We also hope that all you busy, but inspired amateur gardeners out there will learn from our mistakes, find or give us inspiration, post tips, and make comments on our progress so far...

Primula Viali

Wallflower

Jasmine