A Look Back at the Year 2013

What a roller coaster of a year 2013 has been! Just looking back and reminiscing at the things that we got up to and the events that transpired in the past twelve months, some of which we didn't have any control of has reminded us how intense this year was.

Very intense, and what an insane year, whew!

What a difference twelve months can make. Looking back on our blog archives it's amazing how many things have happened in what is relatively a short period of time. Some of these activities we have almost forgotten about but were instantly reminded of the moment we read them all over again. And that's one of the many advantages of having a blog, it also serves as on online diary that we can refer to if we want to remember what we got up to gardening wise in a particular time of the year from the time we started blogging.

Ahh 2013, such an intense yea!. So many highs, a few unexpected lows, overall very intense. Intense, have I said this word enough? It is the perfect word that sums up how both us feel about this year.

We actually don't know whether to consider 2013 as a good year or a bad year for the both of us. One thing is for sure though, is that it was...well...intense! Too intense at times and that's not always a good thing.

So a good year or a bad year? We will pass judgement as soon as we have finished looking back and we'll deliver our verdict at the end of this post. Join us as we reminisce on the year 2013...

JANUARY

A snowy and mellow start to our year as we continued with the final stages of our big pond build and began its Final Countdown as we completed the decking next to the pond, as well as introduced you all to the Prequel Pond which gave us our first experience in building a raised pond. It is also the pond that jump started our koi keeping hobby and is the mother of our big pond build.

It's The Final Countdown.

The Prequel Pond

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The One That Unlocks the Garden

As we entered into spring we made a list of things to do and projects to be done during the coming warmer months. Some were exciting and pretty to do, whilst some were more functional but necessary. 

The entrance into the utility/working area

Doing something that will directly make the garden 'pretty', if you may call it that may be more exciting and tempting to do first but such activities doesn't necessarily make for a good priority. Sometimes you have to prioritise more functional projects first.

The thing is in our garden there are three major areas that still needed a makeover: the new garden (with the koi pond), the top patio (nearest to the back of the house), and the front garden (and a tiny one too, with barely enough space to park two cars off the street). And with the narrow access way to the back garden from the front and limited amount of space (and resource too mind you) we could only do one area at a time...

The New Area (blast from the past photo, as it was June 2010)

The Top Patio (photo courtesy of Loree of Danger Garden)

The Front Garden (if you can call it that!)

And it has to be on the right order: the new area first, then the top patio, and last would be the front garden. Why does it have to be in this order if you ask? Because the new area, of the three is the furthest from the house so that has to be done first. En route to there you have to pass by the top patio, which includes wheeling a barrow through it. If we make over the middle area first then it will be at risk of being damaged as we wheel and carry heavy materials constantly through it as we sort out the new area. And whilst we do the work on the new area where do we store the landscaping materials? Out in the front garden (which makes for a front garden that looks untidy almost all the time, not giving the best of impressions to anyone who passes by). It's not an ideal situation to stack things at the front but where else can we put them whilst we're doing some work, with lack of space elsewhere and all. So...

These things have to be stacked somewhere, and with limited space it had to be at the front garden. Not ideal but hey ho...

Before it gets too confusing I'm glad to say that after almost three years the new area is now finished; koi pond done, three raised beds done, pergola and decking done, a huge tick off the major trilogy of area makeovers and from there we can finally turn our attention to the other two....

But oops, not quite, not yet! What about the working/utility area right down at the bottom of the new area? Okay, it is technically segregated from the 'new area' but it is still part of it and it needs attention and doing to it just as much as the rest. It is not an area of beauty and aesthetics yes, but an area of function and necessity that if done will help make the rest of the garden look nicer. An area of storage and to nurture plants (and fish). So indirectly, it is still a project for garden aesthetics and beauty.

In smaller gardens (like ours, relatively speaking), if you don't have a working/utility area then you have to do your potting up and other chores in one of your 'tidy' areas of the garden, wherein you have to tidy up after every time you do work in it, ideally almost immediately. And not only that, you have to be creative where you store your tools, excess pots, compost, and in displaying all the plants that you have so you don't have to sacrifice the limited space you have to the mercy of a working mess.

Something had to give. While the working area was being sorted, the top patio was 'decomisioned' and became a temporary working area. You can see Twinkles in action there

But if you have a designated working area...

So it had to be prioritised. It's not a 'pretty, pretty' sort of project but it has to be done for it is the one that unlocks the garden. And I'm glad to say that the plant side of this working area is now completed (the pond side, the smaller greenhouse is a bonus but still needs doing soon of course).

The 'plant side' is now finished. Which means I have space to store plants now that are not meant for display this year

The 'pond side' still to follow but no big rush for this one

In this area I can carry on and do all of my repotting, store pots and compost, and store plants that are not meant to be displayed in the garden this year. So instead of having loads of random pots scattered around, they can all be stored in one area instead.

The 'unglamorous' side of the Filtration House, the side facing the working area. The ledge however is a permanent storage space potted plants.

A recent visitor took as much interest in the plants in the working area as much as the plants out in the garden...

and you can tell that this visitor is definitely a plantsman. For a plantsman takes as much interest on the plants that are hidden away as much as the ones on display.

A glimpse of what's currently occupying the greenhouse

Each plant has it's own story why they are stored away. Either they are genuine extra plants, they need extra TLC this summer, they need growing on first before they get planted out, and anything else in between.

The working area will help make the rest of the garden look tidy, unlocking areas that were temporarily taken out of use whilst storage and utility work were done there.

And once the pond side of this area has been finished then that's it, the entire new area is finished. A huge tick off the trilogy. And we can move on to the other two.

Mark :-)

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Spring Spruce Ups

At the back of our house a former owner had planned to build a conservatory, but only got as far as having a  concrete foundation laid. We never found out the actual reason why he didn't get any further, although various neighbours offered their explanations. However maybe one day we would add one ourselves. Regardless of the reasons, the bare concrete was not the most attractive feature to be confronted by as you entered the garden, so a few years ago we decided to cover it over, deciding that it would be too big a job to remove the foundation. We considered a number of options for what materials to use, perhaps matching the paving slabs used on the lower patio area adjacent to the concrete, or finding a stone of similar colour to the tiles on the kitchen floor to connect the two areas. However after weighing up the various possibilities we opted to lay a deck. 

This in itself was a fairly simple process to undertake, made easier by having the flat concrete to work on top of, and in my opinion greatly improved the entrance to the garden. Normally I prefer smooth decking rather than that with ridges in it, however as it does get shady in this area we opted for ridged to reduce the risk of it being slippery.

Sub frame for the deck, with the ugly concrete underneath

Positioning the boards

Nearly finished

However time and weather takes its toll, especially as this is a fairly shady area and so algae and moss was starting to get a hold in some areas, plus whilst digging the koi pond we generated a lot of dusty chalk that both Mark and I as well as the cats were treading into the deck.

Once the pond was finished, we planned to give this a make over, sanding it down and then repaint. However I remembered my Dad's pressure washer tucked away in the shed so wondered how well that would do on the deck. You may remember the post from a couple of months back when we jet washed it. The results were almost instant, blasting off the algae and years of dirt, much of the old paint was also removed leaving a clean finish ready for repainting. And that's exactly what Mark has been up to over the last couple of days.

Blasting away the grime

Freshy cleaned

We had bought a 2.5l (0.66 US Gal) can of deck stain - opting to go for a good quality one able to cope well with the high level of foot (and paw) traffic across it. In theory this should have been more than enough but the bare and dry wood really did just drink up the paint so a second can was needed. 

As well as being able to get the deck re-stained with the nicer weather I was also able to finish off a couple of small jobs on the newly laid middle patio (see here for the makeover), although we have not pointed the joints this time I wanted to cement the edges of the patio to ensure the block edging doesn't move. After all whilst we know it may move again with subsidence, we don't want to stand on the edge stones and for them to move. 

Spot the difference...

As regular readers know we usually have a list of planned jobs and activities ahead of us, so one of the next now being planned is to build a small tool shed/storage near to the koi filter house. This part of the garden is almost as far from the existing tool shed as would be possible to get so a small store for all our garden tools would be useful. 

However it will need to be a due purpose store, when we planned to build the filter house at that point we did not know the exact layout or filters we would use and had planned to add storage within the filter house for various pond related items. However when we were setting things out we opted to have plenty of room to get round the filters which would make maintenance much easier, plus we decided we liked the uncluttered look in there. As a result we need an additional storage space. As always I have several ideas to exactly how this store will look. 

With the various spring jobs we have been doing lately I joked to Mark that it feels like we are a holiday camp getting ready for the summer season!

Gaz

now what else can I jet wash.... :)

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From Lawn to Jungle

We call the area at the bottom of our garden "The Jungle", the planting in this area is a little more untamed, plants jostle for position and people have to push past overhanging plants.

The area itself is not huge, but it does feel bigger than it is as you cant see it all and have to explore. It hasn't always been like that of course. When we first moved into the property this area was mostly a lawn, dominated by a huge old sycamore with a few shrubs round the edges, a pig sty on one side, and the remains of a World War II bomb shelter in the far corner. 

View towards what became the Jungle

Same View today after the shed was extended - (see here for the extension blog)

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Something Old, Something New....

Well as one project comes to an end another one starts. This one isn't planned to take quite so long however - well I hope not anyway.

I'm sure many of you have seen the red pergola in photos before. It was one of the original structures in the garden when we moved in, although had to be cleansed of many years of ivy growth first. It was build sometime before 1999 as that was when the owner of the property who built the pergola sold it to the people before us. Based on various other clues I think it was probably built about 1994-95.

Nearly 20 years of weather and several years under a blanket of ivy have taken their toll on this softwood structure, and with rot taking a hold in the roof joists and the trellis we decided that it was a good a time as any to get stuck in and make a start on repairing it.

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The Pond that Spawned the Big One

Fondness... that's how I will always view the 'Prequel' pond, with fondness. Not only did it lead to us to building a much bigger one but the lessons we have learned from maintaining it have been invaluable.

Yes lessons, so many lessons learned and they are all valuable, like a string of real pearls (how aquatic appropriate!).

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The Prequel Pond

Prequels seems to be the trend nowadays when it comes to films, TV shows, books, and lots of other things. There are beginnings to virtually everything so no wonder there is a current trend to look back, to see how things began and what series of events happened that led to the development of how things are now (and in some cases, have been). But more often, the reason for a prequel is that sometimes it's just nice to look back.

Heck, even our big pond construction has a prequel to it!

Blast from the past, year 2008 - before the build of the big koi pond, there was the build 
of this pond, the 'Prequel pond'. The pond that started it all...

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Open Sesame!

Open Sesame! 

Like a lady that lifts up her crinoline skirt to reveal all that surprising space underneath those layers of fabric!

It's my overactive imagination again of course, one can easily conjure images of a door opening using those magic words or a rock magically moving to reveal the entrance of a cave behind it (as in from the story Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves). It's just that somehow the first image that conjured in my mind when I exclaimed 'Open Sesame' to myself was a 19th century lady suddenly lifting up her skirt.

But one word that I did say out loud was 'Voila!' after a particularly good session of removing palm leaves and stripping down lower branches of some of the bamboo culms, then standing back and admiring the fruits of our labour.

Space...all that space we seem to have suddenly gained. Precious space that is a perfect opportunity for underplanting.

And it is also a little realisation and reminder of the faith we had of what we're trying to achieve with the planting scheme in this part of the garden.

The Jungle Area - July 2006

With jungle style gardening, canopy and layered planting is important and unless you start out with big specimen plants for that instant height and impact (which is an expensive way of doing it) you are likely to start out with smaller plants, hoping that they will eventually get bigger for that all important height and canopy.

And starting out with small plants, the journey towards height will entail lots of patience, faith, and self belief in what you're trying to do as it can take years to get there. A good dash of knowledge and elbow grease is needed too, in choosing the right plants to begin with and giving them the much needed maintenance to help them along the way.

July 2006...

Same area now, April 2012 (note to oneself, must tidy up the cables to the pond!)

When you start out with small plants, apart from the lack of height it's also sometimes astonishing how much foot print they can have, occupying so much horizontal space whilst  at the 'short and squat' phase. But the more they grow the more space they will eventually free up as they start getting towards the 'tall and slender' phase.

As long as you choose the right sort of plants of course. Go for ones that, in time will grow upwards and out of the way, providing height and canopy as opposed to ones that mainly go bulky without a significant increase in height.

Now which plants to choose choose from? So many to mention and some deserve a blog post in their own right but in our location the solitary trunking Trachycarpus palm fits the bill well, and so does Fatsia. Cordyline australis used to be a good candidate but with recent harsher winters it has proven not as resilient as perceived and just keeps getting cut back, resprouting from much lower down or from the ground. And that's not good if it keeps going backward rather than forward (or upward I should say!).

Then at June 2006...

Now April 2012

And yes it can take years, but when you start getting there it will still surprise you. Thats how it felt for us at least, that after all that trimming and cutting we suddenly realised how much some of the plants have grown, how much height some of the palms, trees, shrubs, and bamboos have attained after years of being planted out. And how much space has been freed now that some of them are tall enough.

And the best bit is, they're going to get even taller and bigger!

Now you can't just leave the space underneath them empty for too long, especially if you love plants and love the lush look even more...planting opportunities for shade lovers!

Aralia cordata 'Sun King' - a shade loving perennial now occupying this 'new' space. Should light up this area!

I remember someone saying to us last year that "I never really liked your garden until recently, with all those leaves brushing past my face as I walked along the pathway before. But now that plants have grown taller I enjoy wandering around now. After all those years I finally understand what you're trying to achieve". 

Open Sesame! Some new space have opened up for us. A bit more room for a few more plant treasures!

Mark :)

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A History of Alternative Eden

This blog is the story of our exotic garden, located in Luton, United Kingdom it has been our home for nearly 6 years. The intention from the start was to create an urban oasis, a secret and hidden place that felt like it should not belong in the UK. A garden created with towering bamboos, palms, and many unusual and exotic plants to give the illusion of being somewhere many thousands of miles away.

The garden is still relatively young, it has been in existence for only six summers, and as we pack away and tidy up in the Autumn of 2010, we felt this was a good time to reflect upon what we have created so far.

The beginning
Prior to 2005 we had a very small garden, 30 feet long by 12 feet wide, despite its small nature this was home to a number of exotic plants even then, bamboos, palms, cordylines, acers and grasses. We had outgrown the house and outgrown the garden, so over the winter of 2004-05 we set about looking for a new place to call home.

One of the key requests to the Estate Agents was to find a property with a large urban garden. Perhaps really we were looking for the right garden that had an acceptable house! By the spring of 2005 we had found our new home and having moved in we were able to begin the transformation from overgrown and unloved outdoor space to our tropical paradise.



View of the bottom section of the Garden in March 2005

When we moved in the garden had been neglected for a number of years, there were numerous self sown sycamore saplings, brambles and budleja shrubs growing throughout the garden. The old shrubs and trees had been left to grown unchecked and had more than outgrown the space available to them. We began with a significant amount of clearance, removing conifers, and chopping back trees to more sensible sizes. The intention was always to keep anything garden worthy, especially some of the slightly larger plants. From that initial garden several older specimens still exist, a large Yew tree, and Phormium tenax help define the first part of the garden.

First plantings
Like many people new into the hobby of exotic gardening we had to learn as we went along, we had to find our own style and learn which groups of plants we were particularly keen to grow, as well as which plants would thrive in our location. Some garden centres and nurseries make very confident statements about hardiness that do not take into account all of the conditions a plant will have to endure in a British winter.



The area near to the Yew with some of the first few plants in
Summer 2005



Initial plantings were mostly centred on structure, some of the first bamboos went into the garden to break the garden up into the garden rooms that visitors enjoy today, others to help hide existing garden outbuildings and sheds - a useful and necessary part of a garden but not something one would want as a key focal point. Some of the first palms (Trachycarpus fortuneii and Chamaerops humilis) were planted, and now established are starting to take off.

Hard Landscaping
We were fortunate that despite the garden having been neglected for a number of years prior to our ownership it had been a loved family garden in the past. A significant amount of interesting hard landscaping had already been undertaken, walls, embankments, pergolas, and even a church style gateway had all been erected. Some of these have needed minor repairs but fortunately were in generally good order and of good quality. We have added features such as the Koi pond and associated patio area - which when we moved in was an old pig sty, a new middle patio area has been added to create a enclosed courtyard style garden, and a covered colonial style veranda was added to the front of a large existing outbuilding. Many of these features will be covered in more detail in future blog postings.

The Garden in 2010

The Jungle hut - Summer 2010.

We are now at a stage in the gardens life that it is starting to look how we envisaged it six summers ago, the story of this exotic garden is in reality only just beginning, we hope you will enjoy this journey with us as we continue to develop and enhance our tropical oasis.

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