KEEPING BUSY part 3

While Joni and I were doing some construction, Tarja not to be outdone, she was carrying on with the planting.


Back of the garden, Tarja planted several Cypress trees and a couple of Serbian Spruce.

Spruce are on the left, Cypress in the foreground




It is then covered in crushed Spruce bark, (mulch) to keep the weeds down.

Front garden, the lawn trying to make an appearance. now the Hostas have started to sprout as well.

Front garden, Tarja planted a couple of Mongolian maples.


Just to make sure the whole family keeps busy, `Bandit´ doing her bit with the rodent population. Does life get better than this? Or so she thinks.

KEEPING BUSY part 2

As the header says, keeping busy, the work goes on apace, weather permitting, it is supposed to be midsummer, unfortunately we have not seen the start of it yet, a couple of warm days, then the skies opened up, kind of puts you off doing much outside.

I made a start on the decking for the terrace, it's about 25m2 for the main area, then there is a pathway leading to the garage, the frame is from 4x2 treated timber, so it can sit on the ground without rotting away, the decking is from 1 1/4 x 4 treated timber, it should last us for many years to come.

Decking pathway to the garage.



Continuation of pathway from terrace to garage


Terrace with fencing,

Decking underway

Joni paid us a visit, we had a nice little job lined up for him, he was going to assemble the small shed we bought, it is for storing our firewood in, it's only about 7m2 but it can hold about 10m3 of nice dry firewood.

Construction is simple enough, once I had made a base plate for it, just a case of slotting the pieces together, no nails required, each board is notched so they hold each other in place.

Joni, putting the walls together.

Notice the notched ends, easy assembly.

Joni, doing the roof boards, while I do the floor, these do get nailed down.

Almost ready, roofing felt and painting required still.

Now it's time to go buy some firewood.

Roofing felt fitted, now it is weatherproof.

Not a bad days work!

While all that was going on, I had to get on with doing the prettification of the garage, making the frames for the windows and the corner boards.

Component parts for the window frame, purely decorational.

And how it looks when it is done

Corner weather board.

Start of by rebating the horizontal weatherboard, nail the vertical into place,

Front board fitted, now for the side board.


Both corner boards fitted, now for a spot of paint

KEEPING BUSY

The last few weeks have seen us doing quite a bit of garden and surround work, nowhere near ready yet, we are getting there, it just takes a lot of time and effort.

We called in the contractor with the digger, he helped to level off the ground in the back and also to lay the topsoil down, we had 60m3 of topsoil delivered, not really feasible to do it with a wheelbarrow, he also dug the ditches around our plot, this is to lead away the excess rainwater that overflows from the neighbouring plot,quite necessary when the base is clay

Small digger rearranging the topsoil.

Levelling the topsoil, prior to planting with grass seed.

Outer edge of garden, small Cypress trees and some evergreen Cypress shrubs

We took delivery of 14½ tons of garden stones, these comprised of concrete bricks to make a retaining wall with, some flat slab stones to insert into the lawn so we can walk on it, some 10 x 20cm paving stones to make paths with and some decorative wall building stones to make flower beds with, this has to be started now, as later on, we will be having asphalt put down on the driveway.

Concrete steps to the main door, decorative concrete stones to make a small retaining wall.

The plants are Dwarf White Spruce and Dwarf Mountain Pine

Same view, different angle

Retaining wall, between house and driveway.

Retaining wall, the reason for this is, the house foundations are high in comparison to the driveway, (building regs) so we built a pathway from the small stones, then the retaining wall, also incorporated is a flower bed, this Tarja has filled with a Juniper type shrub, Evergreens are the best plants that we can put down, due to their hardiness and growth, it is difficult to find suitable plants when there is such an extreme climate.

Tarja, planting some more evergreens.

Detail of retaining wall pathway and plants.

Close up of Juniper shrub

Finish off by covering soil with crushed Spruce bark, this keeps the weeds at bay.

The finished article.

Blue Star Juniper shrub

Another Juniper shrub, these don't grow high, they do cover the ground quite well as they grow wide.

Pathway, still under construction.

Decorative stone flower bed.