The Lower Garden

March 2014
We started work on the lower garden. This was a series of slippery stone and concrete steps. The only greenery was an overgrown patch of shrubs and saplings which turned out to be growing on top of a tarpaulin, affectionately referred to by the previous owners as "the pond"

The "Garden" was previously used as a seating area for the cafe

We had a couple of parties and a couple of broken ankles with people falling off the terraces!

This part of the garden was all growing on a tarpaulin and one of the trees fell over when I leaned on it. The "green" christmas tree" is still there.

It took several weeks (and a few tears) but by June 2015 we had a garden to enjoy for the rest of the summer.....

This is the area from the picture above cleared of shrubs and tarpaulin with the christmas tree now standing proud

These slabs had been leaning against the wall since we moved in, too heavy to be moved. Noah and I got them in position by "surfing" them on trampoline legs! They look like they've always been here

Laying out the slabs to create a terrace. Not as easy as it sounds when they are all different sizes. Next job was getting them level as they were all different thicknesses too.

We used some of the slabs from the top garden to create an entrance fit for a castle!

There was a lot of digging involved!

We also created a BBQ terrace and created our BBQ using old wheels from the scrap yard!

Noah built a pizza oven using old bricks from on site.

We managed to reuse all the rubble and stone on site so there was no need for skips. The only things we brought in were soil, gravel and turf.

Building the wall was quite challenging! We ended up rebuilding it several times before we were happy with it!

Finally get to add some vegetation!

Then ready for turf.....

Finally a lawn for camping and playing games

And a seating area for eating out

And a garden for planting. Most of the plants were donated from friends and neighbours

Getting the cherry tree home in the mini was interesting!

Meet the Wall! Game of Thrones has nothing on us!

Bea demonstrating how to play in the garden

We created a little zen area for chilling out

And cleared the rubbled filled area down the bottom to provide seating for the Brewstop

Update May 2015
Garden is coming along nicely......

And the cherry tree is in blossom....