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)
Sadly nothing much was left of the bomb shelter, except a pile of lumps of concrete that had been grassed over.
A neighbor to the rear of our property has lived in his house for well over 50 years, so although he didn't remember the bomb shelter in use, he was able to give us the history of that part of the garden, how it was used to keep chickens and rabbits (until the fox got the chickens and the rabbits dug their way to freedom - Go Bunnies!!).
However the more recent history of this part of the garden is something we have been able to document though photographs, taken over the years since 2005 allowing us to recall how this part of the garden evolved.
The remains of the pig sty were still here when we moved in, built from wooden telegraph poles and corrugated sheet metal. Fairly early on this was removed, and I spent a weekend with a sledgehammer and wrecking bar removing the concrete base. I had originally planned to remove the concrete from the pig pen as well. But having spent an entire weekend clearing the 2/3 square meters of the sty I could not face the idea of lifting up the 20ish square meters of the sty beyond, so the plans for the garden were changed, and this became the base for the bottom patio and the first koi pond we built. In retrospect this was a good decision.
The old pig sty - as you can see we had started on the garden beyond before tackling this job.
In reality removing this much concrete would not a good job to do by hand, and really a job for a pneumatic drill!Perhaps if we had removed the concrete we would not have built the pond, and without the first pond who knows if the second would have ever been built. So thank you to the former owner who thought pigs needed 6 inches or so of concrete to walk about on!!
Building the first Koi Pond (see here for more)
The other half of the old pig sty became a patio with a pergola over the top.
Laying slabs over the concrete.
Twinkles demonstrating the patio today!
The bottom patio area, summer 2011
The bomb shelter area is in the back corner, we took the view that as we did not know how much concrete was dumped here or how big the shelter would have been (from the images of Anderson shelters I had seen before they often were partly dug into the ground so there may be quite a lot of rubbish under there). This area seemed the perfect place for a greenhouse, and so what is currently our "arid" greenhouse sits here now.
Building the base for the arid greenhouse, July 2007
The arid greenhouse today, we have to put the mesh in the door way to keep the cats out
Inside the Arid Greenhouse
Turf cutter - photo from Nixon Hire
The main area of lawn was gradually dug over - have you noticed a trend, we tend to do most things by hand rather than bringing in the cavalry in the form of heavy machines.Perhaps we missed a trick here by not using a turf cutter as on reflection this may have been quite good fun as well as saving time. Maybe next time! Although we no longer now have any lawn at all in the garden - we just need some more garden now to get out the boys toys!
We spent quite a bit of time tying to decide on the layout for the jungle area. And as is often the case I drew out a number of sketches of different designs. I can often visualise what I think will look good, but I am not that great at explaining my ideas to Mark, so a sketch helps. Sadly none of those sketches survive. The approximate design was to have a roughly kidney shaped bed in the middle of the former lawn area with pathways surrounding this and beds of varying depths round the edges.
How the area looked in 2005
In 2006 the first plants went in, the small pergola in the far corner was built, but initially it was a series of beds with grass pathways.
By 2007 the jungle was starting to fill out and look a bit more like a jungle - although still too many fences on display.
The bottom patio area before the pond was built
The pergola went up in the summer of 2007.
Once you get to 2008 the area is looking much more familiar.
The garden is now walking up after the long winter and cold spring, so finally a few photos from today of the Jungle Area. It can be difficult to photograph as everything overhangs so much!
Gaz
