Well, just call me Charlie Dimmock! I have spent the whole day making a flower bed with real flowers and everything!!!! Well actually they're conifers not flowers, but same thing.......
I got up this morning with the intention of going to my mate Alex's shop to get my hair done. I was then going straight from there to a photo shoot. The shoot then got cancelled (I got a text at 6.30am) cos the photographer was ill and I was left wide awake at 7am with nothing to do! Luckily my brother and Russ were up early too so the three of us went with Rusty's brother Matt to get some breakfast in a café. After that Jordan and Russ went off to do some work for my dad and I took Matt to a garden centre with the intention of "just having a look". An hour and a half later we had loaded up the boot of my truck with 50 plants and shrubs and were on our way back to mine. I bought some weird black plastic sheeting that you cut holes in and plant the shrubs through (to stop weeds from growing) and I even remembered to buy a shovel and trowel thing! I also bought a cushioned thing to kneel on (which isn't quite as old-womanish as it sounds cos it's pink!). Once back at mine, me and Matt got all the stuff out of the truck and whacked the shovel into the ground to discover the first three inches was soil and under that was rock hard concrete! What looked like a beautiful flower bed ready to plant in was actually a lump of concrete with a thin layer of soil on top to disguise it. Nice! So, we tried arranging all the plants elsewhere in the garden but they didn't look quite right, I moaned down the phone to my dad and tried to get advice on what our options were. As a last resort I knocked at my next door neighbour's house to see what he had done with his "fake" flower bed and he came to take a look at mine. He's got builders working in his garden at the moment (they're digging a giant hole with diggers to put a new sewage tank in) so after assessing the situation and deciding we would have to manually chip away at the concrete to get to the soil underneath, he went off to ask the builders if they had any tools we could borrow. Ten minutes later the builders had driven a huge digger up my drive and were hollowing out the flower bed. It took less than an hour to have a huge great hole in place of the concrete. I had Dave my next door neighbour, Rusty (he was back with Jordan in tow - who didn't want to help as he had "nice" clothes on), Matt and three workmen from next door shovelling and digging. I stood and watched.
When it was done I set off for the garden centre again to buy topsoil to fill in the hole. We gave the guy at the garden centre the measurements of the hole and he estimated we'd need 20-30 bags of the stuff. We got it home (oh, and I bought another hanging basket to go with the other one I'd bought earlier) and started to fill the hole only to realise the 30 bags we'd bought wasn't even going to half-fill it. Back to the garden centre again with Russ and we bought 40 more bags of the stuff (and changed the hanging basket cos it didn't match the one I'd bought earlier). Two hours later we had the hole filled in with the finest topsoil and me Russ and Matt started to plant the shrubs (or conifers or whatever they're called). I had also bought 5 bags of white stones to go over the black plastic stuff to keep the weeds out and when we got the black plastic stuff down, we realised we didn't have enough of that either (or enough white stones). These darn flower beds are bigger than what they look! Back to the garden centre for the 19th time today and we got another 8metres of black plastic and 4 more bags of white stones. It is now 7.30pm and it's finally finished. We still didn't have enough white stones so will have to go back for more tomorrow (although I'm thinking now that wood chips would have looked nicer). We are all knackered and hungry and covered from head to toe in mud and weird white chalk from the stones.
It looks good, even if it is a bit sparse! I was told not to pack it out too mush with plants as they would need room to grow but right now it looks like I've been really tight and not got enough in there. In three years time it'll look amazing though! ;)
I did not have a clue how hard gardening is! It's tiring physically and mentally! We're all drained and yet that's only one tiny flower bed! I still have half an acre of the rest of the garden to make good! Filth!
I am now waiting for my mate Jon to come over. He came to my brother's gig at Ivory Rooms last night and we decided then that tonight we would have a quiet night in with a dvd and Lyla. Jordan and Russ are going out to get drunk and I am going to have a big one tomorrow cos Lauren is back from Canada, Michelle is hopefully going to come out and I now owe Matt a night out for all his help today. My dad is coming over tomorrow to put my hanging baskets up.
Now I've made a start on the garden I'm inspired enough to do the rest. The first thing I'll have to do is chop down the ten foot high weeds. It really is like a jungle and although Paddy and Lyla love it - it looks a mess! The only nice things are my two huge palm trees. They look the nuts and remind me of Barbados. I've also seen the nuts of a gazebo to put out in the garden for the summer. It's got curtains all the way around it so you sit out there on a warm night and shut all the curtains so that you're sitting in a little room. As soon as Jord can come with me with his van, I'm going to buy the gazebo and an outdoor table and chairs set. I've seen a lovely granite one I want. It's a huge square table with 8 chairs. Perfect for summer days with my mates. I'm still undecided about whether I want to get a swimming pool or hut tub or conservatory or all three!!! I've had a few quotes for them but need to get my arse in gear so that the garden is ready and amazing for the summer. I also need some sort of barbeque to do my quorn kebabs on!
I'm off to have a quick shower before Jon gets here. Lyla is begging me to play with her. She went to walk across the new soil earlier and because it hadn't been flattened down, she sunk in it like it was quick-sand! I pulled her out quickly but she was covered from head to toe in the stuff. Jordan gave her a little wash to clean her up but she did look highly amusing for a minute. It was truly the definition of "muck-pup".
Lots of love, have a great Friday night whatever you end up doing
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