Tidy side at last

The hubby has been a very busy bee this week on his days off and we finally have a nice tidy garden all round now :) it's maybe not perfect in every way but I am really happy with it, a garden is never complete but this is where it's at at the moment... So from now on hopefully once everything blooms I can started posting pretty flower pics! 

Before & after:

The front:

The back:

All planted up... Front garden

It's been a while since I have done a post on here, we have been busy bees in the garden.

I said I would post a photo of how the border is getting on so here is a couple of photos of that:

And here are some baby plants & cherry tree:

Latest developments

I have started doing a bit of planting, perhaps I am doing it a bit early but oh well, here's my plan for the front & what I have done so far:

French lavender, heather, campanula Dalmatian, daffodils & hyacinth:

Carnations:

This is a picture of how that border was coming along last week, I have now however given the tree a trim to get rid of all the old red berries & it is budding lovely now, will add a picture soon:

We have also started painting the fences, I didn't realise what a difference it would make! 

Before:

After:

As you can see I have also planted a clematis in a pot next to the fence, I'm hoping eventually we can have that climbing all over the fence & looking lovely. 

I have cut the grass and painted half the fence at the side too, but going to wait for the hubby to finish it off as it's flipping hard work kneeling when heavily pregnant:

Hanging basket:

Cyclamen:

Buddleja:

Clematis:

Snowdrops:

And rolo haha, he climbed on the table and then couldn't figure out how to get back down, silly pup:

Creating privacy in the garden

Yet another hurdle to face in the world of renting a house.

Our house is the end house of a small row of 'new build' houses, and for some reason they decided to use low fences around the back gardens - probably because the gardens are north facing and already limited in terms of sunlight.

If we owned the house perhaps we could build a taller fence, add trellis to the top of the fence we have, or plant a hedge... Sadly we don't have that option so I need to try and think of something else.

Normally the privacy wouldn't be an issue, but now with a baby on the way I plan on sitting outside a lot & the neighbours are not exactly friendly, making it rather awkward! Also rolo (our dog) loves to bark at people in and around the garden. 

I remember last year feeling rather awkward when having BBQs and sitting out at the same time as other people on the row as there is no privacy.

It's so hard trying to think of something! So I have been doing some google researching...

Perhaps we could use trellis in some way?

Maybe a tall plant ie bamboo, but in pots along the boundaries?

Something suggests a water feature to help soften the noises of other people around, this maybe useful as far as rolos barking is concerned...perhaps some wind chimes too? Then again they may make him bark more haha! 

Hmm I shall carry on in my quest.... 

UPDATE

I have collected some pictures of ideas, also I posted in a forum and got some ideas from there.

I love this trellis, perhaps we could do this, just in the middle of the garden making just a section for the table more private, although the washing line could be a problem with this:

This looks so amazing but I don't think it is something we could achieve:

Here is another smaller trellis idea which looks quite nice:

More trellis ideas:

Another idea is bambo sheets stapled to the fence, this looks nice, however I am not sure what the neighbours might think if we just bang this up, they might think we are a bit rude:

Perhaps we could just do sections like this, interspersed with climbing plants on bamboo sticks in pots:

Or literally just use pots with bamboo sticks and climbers:

Another bamboo idea I love is this, using sweet peas, we could even take it down in the winter if we use pots for the sweet peas:

Or we could grown bamboo in pots:

Someone on the forum suggests using a wind break like the type you use at the seaside and another suggests to use the washing line to make a tent type structure but I feel this would block out the sun. 

Still not sure what to do, doesn't really help that the husband hates the idea of a trellis or anything that looks like a trellis, but at least I have ideas for now.

Reality check

So as usual, last night I took to twitter to ask the gardening community for some advice after reading a blog post on the shoot gardening website entitled "how much should a garden cost?".

And I guess I hadn't really been sensible with my grand landscaping ideas, considering the fact we are renting, so I have taken heed of people's advice which was to use containers, hanging baskets etc.

So today I have dug out all my old plant pots-found I have 17 and only 2 sets of matching ones, which is slightly annoying, but might as well work with what I have!

Although there is one idea I have seen which I haven't decided yet whether it is worth the effort....

http://www.talesfromahappyhouse.com/2013/05/perking-up-your-plant-pots.html?m=1

Basically painting your plant pots with spray paint to brighten them up and also make them match a bit better:

I think it looks lovely, but not sure if it will work on my cheap plastic pots & if I will have time to do it before baby comes, hmmm...

Also my husband suggested that we so a symmetrical design in our front garden by mirroring the corner plot, so that is what I have done, and we have removed the old vegetable plot as I think it's going to be all about the flowers this year! 

So the front is now looking like this:

Just need to pick some flowers now to fill all my pots & our two corner patches, and I would quite like to put a cherry blossom tree in the middle of the garden.

Final bit of action today was to tidy up a bit down the side of the house ready to begin action there: