We continued working on our new garden throughout the summer last year. After digging out borders down one side and along the bottom of the garden, we then turned our attention to the other side.
One of the features I wanted in the garden was a seating area where we could put our little table and chairs. I wanted it to be a secluded area with flowers, trees and shrubs surrounding it. We decided early on in our plans that the best place for this would be on the far side. It was away from the house and faced south west and got the last of the sunshine in the evening as well as sunshine for most of the day. On this side of the garden the lawn was quite bumpy and uneven as well as being waterlogged. On a recent visit to RHS garden Harlow Carr we had seen how they had built a raised seating area with wooden sleepers and gravel and thought we could use this idea in our garden.
First, Richard decided to investigate some of the bumps in the lawn and managed to unearth what was once a large,curved, brick edged flower bed. We couldn't understand why it had been grassed over, perhaps a previous owner didn't like gardening? We were planning to put a flower border in this area and wondered if we should keep it as it was. It was a ready made border after all, but the more we looked at it the more we thought it wasn't very attractive looking. It would have to go.
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| old beds found under lawn |
Because of the slope of the lawn and the drainage problems the new seating area was going to be raised up slightly with wooden sleepers to level it out and keep it dry. When we discovered the brick edged bed we decided we would still have a flower bed there but instead of the brick edge we would have it raised up with the wooden sleepers and make it bigger. This would then be at a higher level than the seating area to cope with the slope of the lawn and would look better.
A lot of work followed, digging out the beds. There were a lot of bricks in there, we thought we would never get to the end of all them. They are now piled up in another part of the garden, I'm sure we'll find a use for them. A base for the shed perhaps?
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| setting out the timbers |
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| Lots of digging work |
Once the beds had been dug over and all the bricks, stones and weeds removed, we incorporated topsoil and mushroom compost to help improve the soil. The timbers were then put in place.
The raised beds looked lovely with the new soil and compost mixture and I was longing to get planting. Not yet though. It was going to be quite a decent sized flower bed so in the meantime I thought a lot about what could go in there.
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| muddy work |
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| work progressing |
As work progressed I did wonder at times if it would look right. I'm not used to straight lines in the garden, we've always had curves. But there was no need to worry, once it was finished it looked great. The seating area was finished off with slate clippings.
Planting up the new beds would come later, but we now had somewhere to sit. We loved this little seating area and throughout the summer and into the autumn we would sit there, even on cooler days wrapped up in coats! Well, having put so much work into building it we had to use it.
It's now a lovely place to sit with a drink, coffee, tea, wine, whatever--a place to take a break from gardening, relax, watch the birds, or plan the next phase of our garden.
