I've done a fairly basic garden plan showing our bungalow in its own plot of land.
The front of our house faces to the right of the photo (southeast as the compass shows), which is bounded by a low brick wall. A short wrought iron gate gives entry from the access road.
The three remaining sides have wooden panel fencing.
A three feet wide border surrounds the property, in which is planted a variety of shrubs and plants.
A series of six-sided decorative concrete flagstones forms a pathway from the front gate to our front door. Keeping the grass neatly trimmed around these can be quite tricky. I used to do it manually using a half-moon cutter and then a pair of hand shears, which took ages to complete. But I have now mastered the use of a cordless strimmer which shaves the job time down to about 15 minutes.
On the south/southwest side, behind the garage, is our flagstoned patio area, with a low picket fence dividing it from the garden which continues around the rest of the house. A tall wrought iron gate in the corner of the patio at the rear of the garage, gives access to the front garden.
When we open the wrought iron gate and the picket fence gate, this gives our little yorkie the complete run of our garden all around the house, without any concern of her getting out onto the access road and into the surrounding area. We don't want her playing with the ponies, deer, foxes, rabbits and other wildlife in the fields and woods next to our house. They are enclosed by fencing and hedging, so none of the bigger animals can get out to venture into our garden, so we know she's safe here. During the day, the smaller animals stick to the fields and woods anyway, and we're all safely tucked away inside the house during the hours of darkness
You'll notice from the plan drawing that there isn't a greenhouse. Kathy doesn't feel the need to have one (at the moment anyway). Strangely though, considering the southern climate is more conducive to gardening, we don't spend an awful lot of time doing very much in it. Our other outdoor activities of walking in the Forest, photographing flora and fauna, and generally enjoying this beautiful environment takes priority.
When the weather is not too good, especially when it's windy and forest walking is a no-no due to the possibility of falling trees and branches, we venture into the garden. Also, when we've neglected the gardening due to 'being elsewhere' and the weeds and grass start to take over and beckon to us to be given some TLC, we'll cave in and don our gardening attire, grab our secateurs and battle through the wilderness we sometimes call our garden
Also, in the front garden we have a stone birdbath. I didn't have a graphic in my garden design program to illustrate one
Well, I did say at the beginning that the plan was a basic design, so it's just to give an overall impression of what our garden looks like and the challenges we face.
I didn't put dimensions on the plan either, but suffice to say that the garden is not huge in size. Maybe around 80 feet long by 60 feet wide (I've never felt the need to measure it actually), but just large enough for us to manage adequately in our more 'mature' years of life
Our patio area gives us a great place to sit outside and enjoy the peace and tranquillity. Just as darkness decends upon us, the bats will briefly fly over our garden and the local Tawny owl calls to us from the woods behind our house. When it gets dark here, it gets REALLY dark and very quickly too. There's no street lights where we live, which makes for excellent night vision for star-gazing.
Well, all this talk about gardening is making me feel guilty that I'm not out there doing something with it. But to be fair, the weather forecast is not too good for the weekend. We've had a few brief drops of rain today and the wind is starting to build up a bit. Not a real problem, more of an excuse really
Anyway, the grass isn't looking too bad at the moment. Still quite short, but in need of a good bit of watering as it's looking a little brown in places. We've not had the waterlogging downpours that we had last year (thankfully), but it's gone the other way this year - not enough rainfall.
No new planting has taking place here this year for us. We're reasonably happy with the varieties of plants we have now.
Before we know it, autumn will be upon us and then it will soon be time to think about getting the garden set for over-wintering. A fair way to go yet though, and plenty of gardening time to fill.
[
The software used to create this garden plan is Serif DrawPlus X5]
