On Gardening

When we moved into our house, the garden, like everywhere else, was in dire need of a makeover.

The inside was our priority as it needed new floors, heating, plaster and so on, and to make matters more complicated, the week before we started working on it, Whizz was made redundant.

Doing up the house used up our available funds, and Whizz began the process of building up a consultancy. He did really well, and I made plans for the garden: Dig up the yards of ugly and patchy concrete,

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knock down the two double garages, one sectional and long, the other breeze block and very tall, and rebuild one, attractive, lower building in the corner. I would tear up the meadow, that was out lumpy lawn and replace with new turf and fill the place with ornaments and flowers.

Sadly before we got to a point when this could be achieved we got a puppy, Milo, I have mentioned him here on many occasions. He peed and pooped on everything. The ‘meadow’ became a patchwork of brown and green, and the more tender plants, added over the years, gave up any attempt at survival. I lost hope and abandoned the garden to nature.

I did have one final attempt to thwart the dog by putting plants in tubs. These I dotted about the flowerbeds and they looked quite nice, albeit they needed watering, which was a pain. The dog grew and can now cock his leg on anything, up to about 3ft. More dead plants.

Our garden now consists of everything pee resistant, and this year by some luck, I find I have a wild flower garden that looks very pretty. We are lucky to live near an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, several canals and a nature reserve, as well as a huge forest. Thanks to this, several species have blown our way including: Blue Bells, Aquilegia, Valerian, Poppies, Harebells, periwinkle and violets, and by selective weeding I am gradually returning the garden to something more or less attractive.

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Of course the ugly concrete hasn’t gone, and I’m still working on the edges of the lawn so this is work in progress, but we sold the sectional garage on Ebay for 25p (buyer collects) and I’m hoping a coat of white paint and a screen might improve the look of the remaining one.

Unfortunately, every time I bend to weed, the dog tries to hump me, lick my face, or drops a ball in front of me. In my next life I’m not having ANY pets.

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