Mr and Mrs Ali pay the garden a visit

On Saturday, Mr and Mrs Ali, Shakir Ali's parents came to see how we have been progressing with the garden.
Shakir Ali is the young man who was murdered in front of the garden in July 2001.
Mr and Mrs Ali were very grateful to all the people who have helped in the garden, they like the idea of an arch of roses to commemorate Shakir.
Mr Ali has expressed an interest in helping out in the garden and has left his contact numbers, he lives nearby.
I am also examining ways of contacting local artists to see if there is someone who might be able to make us a sign to say that this is a community garden. We could put in a further bid to the community council if necessary, as they did not spend all their grant last year.

Margaret solves the water problem

Margaret and Mick discovered that their hose will stretch across the road, so Margaret was able to water all the planting in really well, and we only seem to have lost one plant.
Since this gloriously sunny picture, autumn has started to set in, and so we are facing the last few opportunities to work on the garden before it's just too cold.
There's just one last bag of manure to be dug in, and although I've taken the hoe to the border and the middle bed, we've still got weeds coming through.
I clear up the leaves as ofen as I can, but that is going to be an on going job if we want to keep the garden looking cared for.

Miranda and Janet sort out the centre bed

Great news as the centre bed really starts to look like a garden. Miranda and Janet chose some perennials that are still giving a bit of a show at this time of year and started to plant it up. We have had to water the plants in, but Mick has a tap in the front garden and Margaret suggested we use that.
Mick managed to go one better and get the hose across the road on Sunday morning, so that should help a lot.
Lots of people commenting on the garden and so far nobody has touched the plants.
Things are certainly looking up.

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.