Sagrada Familia

One of the most famous building sites in the world is that of the Sagrada Familia, the Guadi designed church raising up from the centre of Barcelona. Work started in 1892, and Gaudi was involved from the following year, the completion of the building is estimated to be some 15 years or so away. Construction has been stop start over the years, with fund raising being the key issue, however n the 1930s anarchists destroyed the plans and models prepared by Gaudi prior to his death in 1926. During his life, when asked about the length of time the project would take, Gaudi replied "My client is not in a hurry". 

Although still unfinished the church was consecrated in 2010, following the completion of the roof over the main body of the church, and despite the huge scale Sagrada Familia is a church rather than a cathedral.

The building has been open to the public for many years, with visitors entrance fees helping to speed up the construction process. I remember visiting back in 1994 and again with Mark in 2004, and the changes over that period are noticeable. Unfortunately for us the towers were closed to visitors, apparently due to bad weather, that did seem somewhat hard to understand as it was a clear sunny day. However we will just have to come back on another day! 

The Nativity Facade was the first one completed, and had the most direct influence from Gaudi.

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Temptation In The Air

There is temptation in the air here.....the temptation to garden.

But it's only January, but then again why not?

'Twas a frosty night

Winter has been very mild so far and only last night did we have our third frosty night and our lowest temperature this winter so far, -2C. We're hoping that the frosty episode we had last night would be the worst of it this winter, and that winter will not really arrive and that it will be a smooth coast to spring proper. Unlikely but possible. I remember very early in 2011, after having had a vicious start to that winter (that nasty winter that killed many borderline plants that exoticists had been getting away with previously) come January and all the way to spring the temperatures remained mild with a barely a frost or two happening again.

The koi are still active and eating

So its possible and we're optimistic! Not only will it be good for plants but it will save us money too by not using greenhouse heating that much.

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The Big Koi Pond Reveal

We thought it was about time to share with you all the finished koi pond, 2013 was quite a hectic year for us. So much so that we have only now prepared the photos from our koi pond to share the final result with you all. The build of the pond has featured several times on the blog in the past with many references and a series of posts documenting the build (part 1, part 2 part 3 and part 4). But its high time that the final finished pond makes a full appearance!

Just selecting the photos to illustrate the pond was a tricky task, these were all taken in July at the height of the summer - we were originally planning to share the pond with you all at that time, but then events over took us with the garden fire and subsequent home renovation taking our attention and energies. As we mentioned at the time the pond was thankfully unaffected by the fire, with only minor damage to some adjacent plants. 

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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 Big Pond Build (Part 4)

We have had several reminders to complete the story of our pond build, particulary since it has been completed since Spring. We had planned to complete the story and share the big reveal in the summer, but with the fire that hit the garden and also house renovations we did not feel it would have been the correct time to have done that. Thankfully the pond was not damaged with the fire, other than some soot on the white paint work and minor damage to one or two plants nearby from radiant heat.

If you have somehow missed the earlier parts they can be seen in these links (part 1, part 2 and part 3). This series of posts left the project in August 2012 when the pergola had just been completed and we were preparing the pond for fibre-glassing.

In the last post we were fitting the insulation board to internal walls. This has two benefits, firstly it saved us having to render the walls to get a smooth finish and also would help insulate the pond from cold winter weather.

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The Return of the Jungle Hut (Part I)

Having professional carpenters in the garden is something of a novelty, until now we have done everything ourselves, calling in assistance from my Dad on occasion. The rebuilding of the jungle hut, however, is being paid for by our insurance company and so we don't need to resort to DIY.

First they dismantled the old one, which they commented had been very well built. I guess we knew that already as the main part was at least 20 years old, and showed no signs of any problems. That was unceremoniously dumped into a huge skip before it was taken away for recycling - most of the timber content gets pulped and I understand then used as fuel. 

New timber sat next to the old hut in the skip 

The new Timber arriving

So with that gone did we get chance to photograph the big empty space - no not at all, as by the time we had gotten home that evening the start of the new building was going up.

The new Jungle hut will be similar to the old one, although the decked area is growing in size and the shed itself will be slightly smaller. Its looking very solid already and the cladding being used is much thicker than the old - and in my eye looks much better too.

Very chunky cladding

The decking is also much thicker than we had used, so will be nice and solid too. As before the shed will be double glazed and insulated to ensure that when we over winter plants - and it will be needed for that very task before much longer - the cost of heating is kept to an absolute minimum.

Twinkles likes the new shed

We are expecting the finished building to be completed next week - I love having the professionals in!

Gaz

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Take a Bow Jungle Hut!

The Jungle Hut is being taken down today to make way for a new one but before it exits I gave it a final once over last night, just before I finalized tidying up what was still left there to be salvaged.

The sun has set for the old jungle hut

Gaz was feeling a bit nostalgic about it, not sad but sort of reminiscing as he did build the veranda bit with his dad a few years ago. The rest of it is much older, being there all along and came with the garden when we bought the property.

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Slowly But Surely

Well not everything is slow, some move more quickly, just like time. Whatever happened to summer? It seems to have just flown by this year and now the signs of autumn are unmistakeable. We have been super busy all summer so no wonder it felt like it has just passed us by just like that, so quick but one thing that did stick and linger in mind is that weather wise, it has been a decent summer.

To be honest we have been so pre-occupied that it never really hit me before that autumn is indeed here until I saw this group of ginkgos earlier today when I got home from work:

Nevermind! It does mean that it's not long now before we really have to prioritise the garden again for a few weeks as we prepare it for the cold months ahead (which we're hoping won't be that cold, mild would be very nice!).

Not long now before I have to cut back the Gunnera tinctoria

And not long now before I put this Cycas circinalis under cover

And now back to the title, slowly but surely we are starting to regain our house again. And last weekend we went full swing with redecoration starting in the lounge where all the work the builders have to do have all been done, yay!

A glimpse of our new lounge...

But work continues in other areas, like on the porch which is part of the makeover of the front garden (which we blogged about recently).

So far so good...

I still like the idea of a pond here underneath a walkway. Gaz firmly said no.

We're definitely getting there! 

Mark :-)

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Whatever the Weather

Whilst the weather is still on the cold side, with plenty of snow across much of the UK we are having to take a pause from some of our projects and plan ahead instead. We had started the repair and replacement to our red pergola a couple of weeks ago, but haven't been able to push forward with that as yet. The last weekend was also fairly cold so we may have to delay this project for a while longer yet. Things are looking a bit better for next weekend, so fingers crossed the warmer weather will arrive.

It can be frustrating waiting for spring, especially when you want to get stuck in to the garden. But there's no point letting the delay annoy or irritate, you just have to find other ways to enjoy the garden. Sometimes that can be achieved by undertaking a different task or by thinking ahead to possible projects for the future.

Hence last weekend trimming back the Sycamore tree as Mark mentioned, we hadn't planned on doing that but it worked well allowing us to keep wrapped up and even work up a bit of a sweat - so much so that cold drinks were needed whilst cutting back the tree.

We often think and talk about future projects, some we have shared on this blog, others don't get beyond a simple idea. Some will happen, some won't. But whilst they may or may not get off the sketch pad into the garden, the journey through initial idea to a design is something we enjoy.

When talking to my parents about our pond build, my mother often referred to it as a giant Lego set for adults. A reference to my childhood fascination with Lego, although I wish the concrete blocks had been as lightweight as a Lego block. This side of gardening, the creative construction of hard landscaping is something we both enjoy and with such a large project as the pond under our belt we both now feel that there won't be much we wouldn't feel confident in tackling.

Concrete blocks, if only they were as light as Lego blocks.

But back to the cold weather, it does give you time to think about new ideas, so we already have a list of things we want to achieve this year, top of the list being the pergola and then the greenhouses for the working area beyond the koi filter house.

As regular readers will know we are also thinking about changing the front garden. Currently this area is block paved, and we want to lift some of this paving to allow planting into the ground. However on the left hand side of the house we are aware that a number of utility connections are under the paving such as water, gas and electricity As we are not sure as to their exact location, I really don't want to risk cutting though a pipe or cable when preparing the ground. So instead of digging down in that area I am thinking about building a raised sleeper based bed over the block paving, leaving the paving in place and not risking disturbing any of the utilities. 

Although we wouldn't be planting dwarf conifers, this wooden planter from The Internet Gardener gives the impression of what I am thinking. If we add plenty of gravel at the bottom for drainage and sit this over the paving then I don't think that there would be any problems, plus if we really needed to get access to the utility pipes etc then it could be dismantled and plants moved more easily than if the plants were in the ground.

As well as thinking about the hard landscaping at the front we are also still debating planting combinations. Do we have a total break from exotics at the front or go for something traditional? Or embrace the south facing aspect and go totally tropical? Perhaps a compromise in between would be the answer.

I suspect we will go for something that feels fairly traditional, the garden has to work with the 1930's era of the house, but rather than being planted with more traditional plants we may go for a traditional style but using exotic plants, after all the gardeners of the 1930s would have used many of the same plants we love today. This project is still being planned in my mind, and no doubt will morph and change as we reach a final design before starting work.

But despite my mind rushing ahead with the cold weather, I need to reign myself back in and hope we get some decent weather to allow us to finish off the various small tasks remaining on the pond project. So fingers crossed we will get some warm and dry spring weather soon! 

Gaz

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Building the Veranda

Before work had begun.

Just over half way down the garden is a large wooden outbuilding. This had been used by a former owner of the property as a carpenters workshop. We are fortunate that this building, as well as having an electrical supply, is well insulated and doubled glazed - a real benefit in the British climate and allows us to overwinter some of our more borderline hardy plants away from the cold and snow we would often expect.

The area in front of this building had been towards the end of the list of jobs to undertake, and we finally got started in the summer of 2009. This meant clearing the existing shrubs and removing roughly a ton of old gravel.

Due to over commitments the work to build an extension to the building was delayed until the Autumn. The following photographs tell the tale the work undertaken.

    

  

  

The finished result has created a relaxing place to sit and wile away a few hours surrounded by exotic plants.

 

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