Campsis Grandiflora

Well done Carol, what a good call ! She suggested the Trumpet Vine or Campsis Grandiflora as a spectacular climber to fill our middle trellis. We managed to track one down and have done a slash and crystal job on the holly, so let's hope it works. It was too hard to dig it out and now the rugby season has started Nathan hasn't much time at weekends. Luckily our sample was in bud, so we could see straight way how stunning it's going to look against the wall.
We've now got all the perennials in the back bed so there's just some alliums to go in and we can just leave that for a bit. More and more people are stopping to notice now it's starting to look like a garden.

Taking Shape

At last we are starting to look like a proper garden. The back border is clear except for the holly, that can stay until there's been a decision on what to plant in the centre to climb up the big trellis. Both of the white climbing roses are in, they were half price in Homebase so Michael snapped them up. We were given a euphorbia by Ita from the St Mary's Garden, and we've put in some perennials that were chosen for being drought resistant.
I've made some attempt to mark out the central bed, I think it looks OK, and that means that the path is starting to emerge where the bed meets the back border. I've got some edging for this, not very beautiful but we can grow plants right up to it to disguise it. I spoke to the lady in No35 when she was mowing her lawn and she has promised to try to grow a mallow from cuttings.

Planting at last !

The really exciting picture ! Michael found that Homebase were selling off half price climbing roses, so we got this one, and with a bit of help from Ivan planted it on the trellis closest to Miranda's. It looked so good, we decided to go for a symmetrical bed at the back and bought a second one for the other side just before they sold out. Michael's acanthus plants seem to be coming along well, so they will soon be joining the roses along the back wall.
Still looking for good ideas for the middle trellis.

Front corner clear !

I only seem to be able to do one picture at a time at the moment, so here's the one of the front corner, all nice and clear. This may not look much, but it actually took ages to get it out.
One other plus is that the brambles that used to predominate in this corner don't seem to be there for the moment, but let's not speak too soon.

Bad news for Angie, but good news for the garden, lots of worms around when we were digging.

Back from holidays

Good old Nathan ! All those hours in the gym weren't wasted when you can help with digging up those enormous stumps of shrubs that are just too heavy for most of us.
Grabbing a window of opportunity between work, rugby and the gym, he successfully managed to winkle out the two big stumps at the back and the small rather spiky one in the front corner.
This was inspired by some stalwart work from Ivan and Carol who have been back on the weeding patrol again, so the back wall and what will be the centre bed are now looking very respectable.

Big Day as the trellis goes up !

The two Michaels did the hard work while Penny and Miranda offered advice and electricity to ensure that the last part of our phase one was completed in time for the next meeting of the Community Council -just.

The trellis will be useful for climbers to help cover the back wall, and in joint agreement we decided to put up one large block in the centre and two smaller trellis panels on either side.
It's amazing that the wall has kept so free of graffiti given how much goes on generally in the borough, but i think people are now aware that the garden is being cared for, and no loner use it as a large bin, in the way they used to. Tons of weeds are coming through again, but at last the brambles seem to be giving up the fight against the Roundup, so hopefully we'll soon see the last of them.

The Wall

Mick is an absolute hero ! In what seemed like a matter of minutes he was up the ladder and filling the cracks and hey presto ! A beautiful new wall that is not only a lovely colour, but a brilliant background to the plants. One of the smelly bags of manure has been distributed around the garden, we still need to dig the second one in. The remaining two can wait in our front garden until we have plants to put in. Mick is getting the trellis, as the wall looks like an invitation to taggers and graffiti artists, so we'll need to get that up as soon as.

TV camera due today to have a look at our work so far.