In the Garden - Before and After

Our garden has been a work in progress for a while. We had a little patio garden at our old flat and looking after it was a keen hobby of mine. But then we moved here and got a bigger garden, but also had a baby and it was neglected.

Two years ago we took the plunge and paid a garden designer to sort it out for us. The theory being that once the bulk of the initial work was completed (and I'd handed over a fair bit of money!) I'd have the incentive to spend time out there myself - and it worked!

So here are some before and after pics for you (as I know how you like that sort of thing!). We start with a couple of days after we moved in...

A bit scrubby. A couple of dominating trees - we still have the pear tree on the right but the almond on the left had to come out as it was nearly dead. Perfectly acceptable deck at the back, a tatty shed and a brick built barbecue. Some of the plants were nice but quite a lot of them were in the wrong place. The lawn was also a bit of an odd shape. 

The day after the new plants went in (2 years ago)...

The lawn was reshaped (you can clearly see which are the new bits!), the shed and barbecue went. Old plants were moved around and lots of new ones added. The bush on the left was cut down from 6' plus tall to waist height and looked much better. 

2 months later...

With a freshly jet washed patio and a coat of black paint to the back fence. 

Then fast forward to this year...

I'm so happy with how it's filled out (and how quickly). It doesn't take masses of looking after - I just mow the lawn, and trim the edges once a week or so and go around with a hoe to do the weeding. Every few weeks we have to cut back a load of stuff that's becoming overgrown but that's pretty much it! This summer we added a few pots to the patio with bedding plants, agapanthus etc in too.

Last summer we bought the new patio set for the deck from John Lewis and we're really pleased with how it looks against the black fence (which actually needs repainting now).

So I have the gardening bug again and the little man seems to have caught it too! As you can see we had a go at sunflowers this year (they've only just come out in this last week) and we tried some veg in pots on the deck as well, but they were mostly eaten by slugs and snails - we did get a good meal's worth of potatoes though so maybe we'll just fill all the pots with those next year! 

Have you transformed your garden? Or were you lucky enough to move into one that was already lovely? 

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