Birds eye view if your garden

[Kazz]

Thank you to everyone, and may I point out I do not mind what anyone's garden is like I am not after show gardens I am after "average" gardens. Would it not be boring if everyone's garden was the same and remember people one man's jungle is another woman's eden Thank you to everyone who has and will reply with or without pictures.

I would also appreciate a rough idea what you use your garden for mostly/mainly, oh and roughly how long you spend in your garden weather it be daily, weekly, hourly...yearly I do not mind Thank you.

[random]

We use ours for the animals, for my son and playing with him in, and for BBQ and eating out on a nice day. Also relaxing, sunbathing, reading.

I'll get some pictures up tomorrow hopefully.

In my old house I had a much bigger garden, but it was just a plain huge fenced in lawn with privet at the rear and was only used for the animals, mostly the dogs as it was large enough for them to charge about in. The side garden had bushes and colourful shrubs and was mainly used for the cats on their harnesses. The front was a small lawn with border plants and flowers and was just there to look nice! I'm not sure I have any pictures of my old house anymore though, it was a horrible place to live due to a lot of anti social behaviour and this is the reason the gardens were never used for sitting out or playing in e.t.c. You'd have had glass bottles thrown over the fence if you were heard having a garden party.

Anyway, will get some pictures up as soon as I can for you.

[dandysmom]

OK. here are some pics:

This is my neighbor's yard...not too good a pic.....

This is a better one ..

Before the invasion of the Asian Tiger mosquitoes (the day flying/biting ones) used to sit in the garden with a drink, book or crossword; now, sadly, rarely do so.

[dinahsmum]

Here's an old post with before during and after shots of our garden Kazz - you're welcome to use if it's any good. http://www.catsey.com/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=20
I may have my "plan" of the work somewhere - if I can find it I'll scan & post - obviously being a plan it's two dimensional and to scale, so may help you fit the pics with what is actually on the ground.
Use - well, two adults one energetic dog and two cats. Used a great deal - even in winter we sit out and have coffee in the south facing 'courtyard'. I feed birds and hang washing but mostly it is informal, very low maintenance, leisure space.
Your course sounds fun - will you be able to use your skills at work or will it just be a hobby .... or maybe a new career?

Later:
Here you go
1 = my cunning plan
2 = an aerial pic. Am the RH (as you look) of the semis in the middle of the pic. Isn't is odd seeing your house from that angle?

[alexgirl73]

wow, what a lovely garden you have DM!! Love the raised bed. I presume that's railway sleepers is it?

Here is my garden , and please remember this is a work in progress lol! When we moved in there was nothing except weeds, thorns, bramble bushes, various car parts etc!!!

My rockery (the large plant with the purple flowers is the wilted one I posted a while back that we didn't know what it was! Still don't lol, but it's very pretty!)

My front bed, with the rabbits hutch in the background

One of my pots! very pleased with this as it's the first time I have really planted anything in one of these.

From my bedroom window, the wood in the bottom eleft hand corner is off of some pallets I got from freecycle for Robert to make a fence out the front with!

Please excuse the back of the garden! This is Roberts 'bit' lol, and he has great plans for a pond etc. (I'm just waiting on him finishing off the greenhouse lol). The table and chairs came from freecycle a few weeks ago as did the euonymous at the back bed!

Just the edge of the garden. The brieze blocks are for Robert to finish off the wall at the back as the council made a boo boo of doing it, so he needs to put them in place before it is safe to work on (they came from freecycle also lol)

I use the garden to enjoy my planting etc, the kids use it to play in with the swing and playhouse etc. Robert enjoys digging and planning and we all use it to relax in on lovely sunny days.

[dinahsmum]

Thanks Alex Yes the planters are railway sleepers - and it was done just before the old creosoted ones were banned, so they're good and dark. I've heard that the tannilisation(?sp) they use now is actualy a much more environment-damaging process, so you don't really know where you are, do you? The planting is all much more 'lived in' now, and all 3 pets in those pics are now at rainbow bridge

Don't do your efforts down - that's coming along really well. Wait till the end of summer and see how much it's grown. That's the great thing about gardening - it improves rather than deteriorates over time.

Oh - and I'm really pleased Freecycle is working for you. I think it's a great way of helping people with stuff they no longer need and people who need stuff the others no longer want.

[tilly]

Here are the pictures of my garden at the moment.
This is a picuture of the corner of the garden with a virginia creep going up the wall and the cat kennel as well. These are what you see if you go right out of my kitchen door

This is a picture of two clematis going up the fence and i don't knowwhat the plant in the pot is but it is very pretty.

and if you go left you see these varoius potted plants waiting for a bed to live in

Please excuse the jungle of weeds in this next picture I haven't got round to weeding that section yet Yet more potted plants along the fence line too.

And here is a close up of my strawberry plant andthe strawberries on it. Again excuse the weeds

Lastly is a picture os my garden in the house I am buying. I hope to be able to relax and have a cattery in in. my garden at the moment is just used for the cats and keeping some potted plants in. Excuse the relfecrio of my t-shirt in the photo!!

[sammy]

Here's a couple of my jungle As you can see, it's not very 'manicured'! You can just make out the small pond below the patio, no fish, just frogs and mostly newts.

It really just gets used as an outdoor room I suppose, drinks in the evening if it's fine, snoozing under the pear tree if it's very hot, and of course a playground for the cats!

[Elaine]

I'll get you some piccies later this week if you like as I will be getting a new camera. Mine is more of a junk yard than a garden although one of the bathroom suites seems to have died and disintigrated into the ground

[Kazz]

Just to let you know I did not get on the course for this year but have been "asked" in the letter received today to apply again next year.