In my garden: A sparkling clean greenhouse

It's a job that I've been putting off, but one that I know needed to happen before I got too many seeds on the go, and that's cleaning the greenhouse. It needed to happen as the glass was showing signs of green, and I'm sure there was less light coming in because of it. And so on the warmest weekend of the year so far I decided that the time had come, and started to empty its contents. 

After several trips the pile outside was beginning to grow, but there was still a lot more to come.

With everything out I took the opportunity to check under the wooden floor, which is actually the side of our old wooden shed. One part of it had become a bit spongy and I was keen to check it was ok. I half-expected to find a massive hole, so was pleased to discover it was just where the ground level changed a little and where the wood was starting to rot. We'll need to replace the floor in the not too distant future, but not this year. I added some sand and a bit of broken paving slab under the spongy bit in the hope it gives me a bit more time.

And there was quite a pile of stuff outside. Considering we have a 6 x 4ft greenhouse, it's pretty impressive, and the contents completely filled our stone circle, and some.

Next up was some Jeyes Fluid, lots of water, the hose and some time to work out our best implements. For MOH it was the hose, for me it was MOH. For some reason he couldn't help himself and was itching to get involved, so not wanting to get in the way of a man and his cleaning habit I found myself a deckchair to watch from.

He got bored pretty quickly too, and was soon heading off to clean more manly things like his barbecue. Luckily though the green grime came off easily and it wasn't long before the greenhouse was sparkling inside and out.

I also took the opportunity of having some space to work in and added some manure compost to the greenhouse bed before moving everything back in, after a brush down. The good news is that everything went back in, and even better than before so it's tidy and there's places to work, and now I can't wait to get on and sow some seeds. I know they'll thank me for the extra light.

In the greenhouse bed I've this gorgeous ice plant which has overwintered in there. It's clearly happy as has some offspring so that's good news and I'll be potting it on and out soon, before it gets too used to being in the greenhouse. The giant fuchsias which I shared in my post at the weekend are now potted up and I'm waiting for them to grow into giants...

GIANT FUCHSIAS IN THE MAKING

We'll see how they do.  I was pleased to see two pots of thyme had survived the winter too (you can see it just creeping into the photo above) and I'll be planting many more herbs in the next few weeks too.

Elsewhere in the garden

My garden is bursting into life, and despite its greenness, there's plenty of colour. This Kerria, or yellow pom pom plant, came through the fence from next door and now I have two mid-sized bushes for nothing.  And looking as beautiful as this, it's very welcome to stay.

KERRIA, OR YELLOW POM POM

The euphorbias acid green flowers continue to add highlights throughout the garden. I've noticed that they've started to creep towards the house along the fence where I'm struggling to get anything other than bulbs to grow, so I'll be encouraging them to do more of that. MOH still calls them dalek plants, but has conceded they add colour to our Spring garden.

EUPHORBIAS, OR DALEK PLANTS AS MOH CALLS THEM

The garden is growing, and this shot of leaves gives a good clue to how much. What I like about this shot is the density of the leaves, and all of the shapes that happily grow alongside each other.

LEAVES OF ALL SHAPES AND SIZES

At the back of the garden the pear and cherry trees are in blossom. All white, all of them. This is from the pear tree, but the cherry is very similar to this. The lilac - also white - is starting to flower, but only on the branches we didn't cut last year, so I'm glad we didn't cut them all. We do need to finish the job but will be waiting for it to flower before we clamber up the ladder with the extendable loppers.

PEAR BLOSSOM

I've spotted some of the brightly coloured flowers of the honesty plants too. They're looking great against the zinc pots behind them, and I still can't believe that for many years I missed these as they were pulled up with weeds. MOH still brings plants over and says is this a weed, which to be honest is too late to say no! He's getting better, but even so...

HONESTY

The sempervivums - or succulents - appear to be doing well in their trough, and I'm keen to see how they get on and multiply. I've read this week about taking the top out of these plants to propagate them too - as an alternative to propagating from leaves - so I'll be looking into that more, and maybe even trying it for myself.

SEMPERVIVUMS

The camellia is finally flowering, it's in a very shady spot by the fatsia and so it's always much later than others, but it feels late even so. The newer white one at the back of the garden is growing well but flowers are few and far between. The peonies at the back of the garden have almost doubled in size in the past week, the one I struggled to find is easy to spot this week, so I'm hopeful for lots of flowers from them this year - keep your fingers crossed!

And finally the sambucus nigra, or black elder (think elderflower but with pink heads) is still with us. I was worried about it during the winter months, and wasn't sure if it'd make it. It's the plant I planted for my first cat Dylan (who was a black long haired moggy), so I was hoping I hadn't lost it, and I haven't.

THE BLACK ELDERFLOWER

It's at this time of year that we struggle to keep up with our garden, but hopefully it won't get too far ahead of us, and will look half decent for the party for our 110th that we've got planned in June. More on the party another day, that's a whole other post, and organisational challenge I'm working on!

How do you keep on top of your garden as it starts to grow like crazy at this time of year?

Spring and new routines

Spring is a season that brings with it hope, new life, renewed energy and lots of colour and there's no mistaking the Spring cleaning that many people get the urge for at this time of year. It sort of makes sense doesn't it?  There's been elements of Spring cleaning here - and more to come, no doubt - but I'm not the expert cleaner in this household, so I often contain myself with a bit of Spring rearranging. And there's a fair bit of that going on right now. 

Our eat the freezer challenge

We've currently got two fridge-freezers. When I say currently it was supposed to be a temporary thing, as the fridge-freezer I brought from my old house surely wouldn't last very long. For many years it was on our top floor and we used it for the cats' food, as they ate in their room and it saved having their "stinky" food (as MOH rightly called it) in the main fridge. It was also good for for cans of drink and as an overflow fridge space, and we've just got used to having it.

Well, that fridge-freezer is still going strong. We've lived here fifteen years this year! It's now in the conservatory, and well, it's not the look we're after, so we're restarting our eat the freezer challenge to get down to just one, because that's more normal right? 

Already I've rearranged some of the contents between the two as it makes sense to find space for the things we use regularly - such as bread rolls and bagels mainly - in the fridge-freezer in the kitchen. Now we're aiming for as many meals as possible to involve something from the freezer. I'm sure at some point it won't work, or we'll end up with some very odd combinations.

I'm also trying to use less of the fridge space and that's meant sorting through many of the opened bottles that were on the top shelf. It was amazing what I found, but probably best not to go there!

Getting my spray paint out

The lighter evenings are also a good incentive to get crafting again, especially for those crafts, like paint spraying, that need to be done outside. During the winter months I find that hard as I only have the weekends to complete that in, so if I've plans for the weekend that knocks that out too. I've a project in mind for the garden involving a pallet, some spray paint and Sugru, the mouldable glue, and now all I need to do is work out what colour using the new PintyPlus paint chart.

This is only one of the pages of the paint chart, and I'll freely admit I was way more excited than I should have been when I received this. I've loved using the chalk paint spray, but I'm really looking forward to using some of the bolder colours.  Definitely a case of watch this space!

A refreshing and decadent feeling cuppa

Another of my new routines takes place when I remember to leave work on time and arrive home before MOH on bright and warm days. It feels super decadent to get out my posh tea and my new Charles Viancin Tea Magnet and Infuser Set, to give it its proper name. I was sent this to review a while back and it's only now that I'm using it regularly. For me there's something about the brighter Spring days and proper tea and the ritual of brewing loose leaf tea.

The tea goes into the metal drum, and when your tea has brewed enough you use the magnetic camellia stem to remove the drum and place it onto the camellia leaf, to avoid mess. It's dishwasher safe and the accompanying information says they'll never tarnish or lose their colour.

I'm a big fan of silicone in the kitchen and you'll most likely remember the daisy lids, the poppy trivet and the cute vegetable bottle stoppers from the same company. This works equally as well and while I like using it home for my early evening treat, I can see it being equally useful at work and am quite tempted to have one on my desk too.  I think drinking loose leaf tea, whether it's white, black or floral gives me the feeling of being more healthy than I actually am, which brings me onto...

Time to get into shape?

Over the winter months it's much easier to disguise an extra pound or two, but I know that deep down I'd like to tone up a bit. That'll partly come down to eating more healthily, and getting out on the bike again, but I think there probably needs to be more than that and a sustained effort. I'm toying with the idea of daily routine of press-ups and sit-ups and now I've typed it here maybe it'll happen. It probably should, but as you can see I'm still talking myself into it. I know that I'll want to see instant results, but I also know that it's going to take more than a day or two of healthy eating and a fitness routine.  

I've started with the willpower thing during Lent, by giving up cakes from the cafe at work. That may not sound much, but the cakes are huge (and lovely) and very tempting. It's a start, but it won't be enough on its own, so I need to convince myself - and to actually do something about it - while there's time to actually make a difference.  

I know it makes sense, I'm just still getting my head around it. How do you convince yourself a new routine is a good thing, let me know your tips, I think I could do with the extra motivation!

And pottering in the greenhouse

I've not done much pottering yet, but I'm hoping too. I need to get some seeds sown both for the allotment and some flowers for the garden too. We're having a bit of a do in the garden in June and of course I want the garden (and the house) to look its best. No doubt it won't be long before the greenhouse is full of seedlings and I'll be running out of space, but what a problem to have!

What's on your list of Spring jobs?

* This is a collaborative post but all views are my own.

Should you stay or should you go now?

Hands up, who started singing? I know I was as I was typing it, so if you weren't I salute you. I didn't know it was a Clash song, I had to google that, but I knew the words - and more than I've included here. Surprisingly though this isn't a musical post, it's something more literal, should you move or improve?

No doubt, something that crosses most of our minds at some stage. I know when we were thinking about replacing our kitchen, we knew that although our kitchen was getting tired, it wasn't completely broken. But we also knew that by the time we wanted to move on, it would most likely be in the completely broken, so we decided to go for it and enjoy the new kitchen rather than just have a new one put in just to sell the house.

But I'm not going to talk about that in this post either, I'm going to indulge in some nostalgia today and we're heading back to my previous house, which was the first house I bought on my own. It was an Edwardian style house and a probate sale, and I suspect that the owners had had the house for a very long time.

We're heading back to 1993 and while I'd just bought the house, improving it was essential. Every room needed bringing up to date and the garden needed completely taming. I've found a load of old photos, but sadly not all of them just yet, and I'm still deciding which to share with you today. They've brought back so many memories that I think I'll be sharing all of them at some point and looking out the ones that I haven't found yet.

I'll give you a taste of the work we undertook, but as the sun is shining let's focus on the garden today.

REWIRING THE WHOLE HOUSE

PART-WAY THROUGH DECORATING THE FRONT BEDROOM

THE RE-DECORATED BOX ROOM

AND THE COMPLETED VIEW, WITH HAND-PAINTED TILES

I'll leave the rest of upstairs as the back bedroom has its own story, as we replaced the bomb-damaged ceiling. Yes, I know I said 1993, but the ceiling was battened which was typical of bomb damage. That gives you an idea of what I took on, and I don't think I knew just how much that was until we started. Thankfully my dad, a veteran tradesman and my brother, an electrician along with my ginger cat, Quickly were willing to take on a lot of the work. I kid you not about the cat, every time there was DIY work going on he was there helping out, the other cats (I had three more) made themselves scarce, just like normal cats.

In the dining room, you can see work is still underway, but that built in cupboard was my pride and joy. I personally, and painstakingly, scraped years and years worth of paint off of the original in-built cupboard, and it turned out rather well. The curtains behind the glass were a genius idea as they hid a multitude of sins, but I remember mum thinking how old-fashioned they were, as it was something her nan would have had.

WORK IS UNDERWAY IN THE DINING ROOM, AND THE STEPLADDER WAS IN REGULARLY USED

We'll leave the kitchen too, as I don't have the "after" pictures yet, I must have them somewhere and that can be a whole blog post on its own. Let's head out into the garden, in 1993, it looked like this:

THE BACK GARDEN IN 1993: WHO KNEW WHAT WAS HIDDEN IN THERE...

Yes, it was quite the mystery garden. We knew from the gardens next door that there was more to discover, but we also knew that we needed our secateurs to find out exactly what! There was a path on the right-hand side that was just about squeeze-through-able, but as with all gardens, it continued to grow. The birdbath looks great with its ring of yellow plant doesn't it? Only thing was the plant was planted in a plastic washing up bowl that had perished, so as soon as I investigated further it disintegrated in my hands. I'd forgotten that until I saw this picture, funny how our memories are tied into photos isn't it?

There was a garden shed though, right outside the back door:

A GARDEN SHED THAT WAS AS RICKETY AS IT LOOKS

It wasn't long before the brambles had at least been cut down, something that was a regular task over the next few years, and taming was a little way off yet. But with them cut down and a clearer pathway beginning to emerge it was time to start building a new shed. I think my dad was in his element as he made the frame out of angle line, or grown ups meccano as I often called it.  

STARTING TO TAME THE BRAMBLES, AND BUILD A NEW SHED

And I'll have you know that that slant is just an illusion of camera angles, it was perfectly straight. I know I measured it plenty of times, as dad has a habit of preferring things with a bit of a lean. The windows were old ones that dad had from I'm not sure where, but he was right, they did come in useful one day. 

We'd found the breeze blocks you can see scattered around the photo in the garden, on the left-hand edge. I think some of them went back to where they came from and others I found new homes for. A strange thing to have discovered in all those weeds.

THE SHED THAT DAD BUILT

But it wasn't long before the new shed took shape. The door was from an inbuilt cupboard in one of the bedrooms, so small that a coathanger didn't actually fit in sideways, and so useless as a wardrobe. But pretty useful as a shed door. The wood that was added to the metal frame, was from my brother's dogs kennel, which they no longer used. He had two alsatians, so it was a fairly big kennel.  

How I'd wished I'd hung onto that zinc bucket and butler's sink, but sadly I didn't. My re-use tendencies clearly had left me at this point. I'm not sure where the crazy paving slabs came from, but I do remember collecting bottles to add some interest to the round-edged patio. That was something else I'd forgotten about, I was adamant it had to be round, and well here we are again creating circles in this garden, although this time in grass.  

THIS PATIO WASN'T SQUARE EITHER, I SEEM TO HAVE A THING FOR CIRCULAR SHAPES IN GARDENS

And so the garden started to take shape. This was the garden that got me into gardening, partly because it was a challenge and partly because it was hard to not get into gardening after I'd seen - and contributed - to the work bringing it back under control. 

And as with anything, my garden continued to evolve. Net curtains were added to the inside of the shed, not because I was house proud or anything, but because the dark window used to reflect the spotlights from the football ground over the road and give me the heebie-jeebies. Trellis was added to the front of the shed to soften it further. Turfs were laid when we were confident that the brambles had lost their grip, and a new fence was erected, on the left-hand side as you look by me and dad and on the other side by the now new neighbour.

You wouldn't quite believe it's the same garden would you?

IN 2000 WHEN THE GARDEN IS MORE ESTABLISHED AND MATURE, YOU'D NEVER KNOW, WOULD YOU?

And I think this garden is a fantastic example of what you can achieve if you choose to stay and improve. I think there'll always be a time when moving on is the right thing to do, but for me, if I fell in love with a house, had invested time and money into it, then if there were no other factors I'd choose to improve, rather than move. But then again I've only ever lived in five houses, maybe that's a factor too.

So would you move or improve?

Slater and Gordon Solicitors have recently undertaken research to help you make up your mind. I don't think it that surprising that 61% of people said they'd renovate rather than move, but I am surprised that only 35% consider location as the most important factor when choosing a new home. Or maybe I've just watched too many TV programmes of the same name, same name, same name.  I would think that location is one of the things you can't change about a house so it's important to get that right, but I also suspect that if the right house comes along and you fall hard for it, then location could easily go out of the window!

Let me know what you think, and if you're in the move or improve camp, I'm keen to know.

* This is a collaborative post, but all views and opinions are my own.