Our Garden Room.

How does our garden grow?

The Real gardener playing in his room.

The garden down the stairs on our property is a utility area, it's where we grow vegetables, have a compost heap, that is where the citrus trees are, and where the washing gets dried.
No reason why it shouldn't be nice to look at.
Especially from the kitchen window, where I always stand when waiting for the kettle to boil.

Bali stepping stones.

We saw a brilliant idea in Ubud, Bali on our last holiday there( far too long ago already now).

They had pressed large leaves into a drying concrete path. They were all different and it made the concrete very organic looking.

 I reminded my Man of this idea a little while ago when he was thinking out loud about a path, and he immediately got enthusiastic. The next morning he found a metal hoop in his garage, which had come from an old wine barrel. ( honest, it's true about holding on to things "cause-it'll-come-in-handy-one-day").

The edges were a good 10 cm deep, so excellent to use as a frame for concrete stepping stones.

 Any thinner and the stepping stone wouldn't be strong enough to step on.

Our new stepping stones, homemade!

He proceeded to dig a little into the ground, and making it level, before putting the hoop in and shoveling the concrete into it.

Of course he could only make 1 step at a time, waiting till it had set before removing the hoop and doing the next one.

 It therefore took a few weeks before they were all done. So every day 1 small jobbie.

Plenty of time to start planting liriope grasses leading to the washing line to distinguish that area from the veggie patch. And some gorgeous ferns and ferntrees.

Rounded brown gravel fills up the spaces.

When the path to the washing line was finished he spread a soft brown coloured gravel around the stones, right up to the level of the steps so that if you misstep the stone you don't twist your ankle.
 Good thinking!
 He was careful too about pacing the round path stones to our own step lengths.

Spreading dark coloured bark.

He then put a few more stepping stones towards the vegetable garden, and spread dark bark on the bare soil. It adds a nice contrast and keeps weeds at bay. And it is pretty cheap too.
It will lighten up in colour eventually, due to weathering.

Nice contrasts between the different areas.

BEFORE.

This is what it looked like, when we came to this house at least 2 and a half years ago. It looks like grass, but it was just dense weeds and prickles. The small maple tree in the front got the chop fast, as it was already throwing shade onto the washing line.

AFTER.

And there we go! A Real Garden from the Real Gardener!