PLANTING BEGINS

Not one to pass up a bargain even though it’s a week before payday and the old bank balance is looking redder than the other half’s sun-baked face, I’ve begun acquiring plants for the back border. 

Super scrimpers like me will know how much the word ‘clearance’ gladdens the heart and makes your pulse race.  I still get a nervous flutter when I spot something that’s been heavily discounted on shop shelves then I pounce on it like a hungry hen, clucking over the thing until I get it home.  “Crazy old bird” says the other half.  He’s not wrong there. 

What am I clucking over this week?  Well, I was lucky enough to acquire some packs of canna rhizomes in B&Q which had been reduced down from £3 to £1 per pack.  Push the boat out and buy a tenner’s worth!  I’ve never grown cannas before but hey, I’m not going to let that stop me. 

 

Final clearance - £1 per pack

To experiment, I’ve planted half the tubers straight into a large hole in the ground and potted up the other half to see which germinate the fastest. 

 

X marks the spot

Which cannas will appear first?

Our neighbours have canna plants in their garden and that is usually a good indicator that this type of plant should grown in your soil.  Being quite tall and sun loving, I’ve picked a couple of hot spots at the back of the left border where they can bask for hours in the afternoon sun.  We’ll see what happens. 

A few acquisitions have also been found for the shadier back border.  Being a hospitable person, I’ve sent out a dinner invite to passing slugs/snails by planting a few hostas.  Fingers crossed that these don’t get scoffed up.

 

Hostas loved by slugs and snails

Easy to grow perennials such as phlox, echinops and salvia fill the sunnier gaps and hopefully will add some height and colour.

Remember to add lots of ericacious compost

As I love evergreen plants, I’ve added a camelia, some azaleas and I couldn’t resist this very beautiful hybrid rhododendron ‘scyphocalix’.   

Scyphocalix hybrid rhododendron

Just look at these wonderful flowers, the colour of sunsets.  They remind me of Peruvian lillies as they’re a little smaller than your usual rhododendron blossoms.

Needless to say I’m looking forward to payday on Friday as I’ve spotted a few other shrubs and ferns that I wouldn’t mind adding to the border.

BORDER PATROLS

It’s been a bumper weekend of bricklaying, barrowing and boat loads of migrants crossing the Channel thanks to the unexpected sunny bank holiday weather and as we Brits know, sunshine is not something usually associated with bank holidays so you’ve got to make the most of it.

 

A mountain of soil to barrow into the back border

Priti Patel is not the only one getting her knickers in a knot over border patrols.  Now that the other half has finished building our back border wall, he’s been busy patrolling his newly laid brick border making sure migrant cheesy-bugs don’t attempt any illegal crossings from back soil onto the lawn.  Rwanda’s not good enough for these scaly blighters he says as he flicks them over the fence into the electric substation next door with a resounding fart.  That’ll teach ‘em!

 

Applications now open for border crossings

Despite all the grumbling about bricklaying, he’s done a cracking job on the new border wall.

New retaining wall gets started

Turning the corner to join with the smaller shed

It's increased the width of the existing flower bed

Finishing off with blue engineering bricks

Joining the wall to the tiled step

Last few bricks then its done

I can’t wait to fill the area with lots of lovely flowers and shrubs, especially colourful azaleas or rhododendrons which I think would do well in this mostly shady spot.

Before landscaping

 

After landscaping

Planting begun in the new border

SHED STEP - TILING

It’s been a bank holiday bonanza – plenty of sunshine, four days of uninterrupted DIY and an over-abundance of chocolate as it is Easter after all. 

 

You're never too old for Easter eggs

The ‘Special Landscaping Operation’ has advanced quicker than you can say ‘pass me another crème egg’ to the point that the shed step is now completely tiled. 

Rewind back to the start of the week.  The other half unexpectedly found himself with some paid ‘gardening’ leave being in between jobs and cracked on with the landscaping, filling in the step base with concrete and laying down the first 2 brick courses for the back border wall. 

Thanks to a week of glorious sunshine, the concrete base quickly dried out so over to yours truly to weave a bit of tiling magic and finish off the top. 

First a trip to B&Q for some tiling essentials - some exterior tile adhesive and tools to apply it with. 

It pays to have the right tools for the job

Whilst the same principles apply to tiling be it inside or outside, it’s important to remember that things such as adhesive and grouting need to be fit for exterior use.  I’m using a 20kg bag of Mapei Fast Set Adhesive to fix my tiles to the concrete.

 

Use adhesive suitable for the exterior

Dries super fast so mix up in small batches

Begin by ensuring your concrete base is as debris free as possible.  Give it a good going over with a stiff broom.  Some people then apply primer to the base or a waterproof membrane such as Redgard before laying their tiles but well, I’m just going to go for it.  If they all fall off later then I’ve only my own stupid self to blame.

 

Give your base a good wash and brush before tiling

Before applying any adhesive, I like to lay out all the tiles across the base so that I can get an idea of spacing plus see if there is any unevenness to the surface area.  Without a specialist tile cutting machine, I’ve spaced out the tiles with wider gaps to make them fit perfectly over the concrete base.

 

Lay out your tiles beforehand across the whole area

Now to stick them into position.  As Mapei is a fast-setting adhesive and its quite a hot afternoon, I’m working on the basis that it is better to make up smaller batches rather than mix up the entire bag in one go only to find you’ve got a 20kg grey brick by the time you get to the end of tiling.  Little and often I say.

 

Work small sections at a time

It’s a slow, time-consuming process but better to get it right first time as once these babies set, there’s no lifting them off to reposition. 

 

Keep checking spacing and lines are straight

Left overnight to thoroughly dry and harden, the tile bed is grouted the following day.  Rather than buy a separate exterior grouting product, I’ve used the same Mapei mixture to grout the tiles.  It’s a nice grey and should dry rock hard but make sure you wash off all splashes or marks before it does otherwise you may not be able to remove them from the tiles later.

 

After grouting

Our tiled step is now finished adding an elegant touch to the front of the new shed.

 

A nice way to finish the front of the shed

SHED STEP

It’s all well and good having a smart shed in the bottom corner of the garden but not if you have to squelch through a quagmire of mud to get into it.  What’s lacking is a touch of landscaping in front, a nice paved area, bit of decking or something solid that you can use as a natural step up into the building.

 

Exterior swamp not required

There’s also tortoise proofing of garden to consider.  Shelby’s a bit of a bugger when it comes to escaping from her outdoor enclosures and the last thing we want is for her to be wedged under a large wooden shed or camouflaged deep in the back borders like a torti-commando hiding from Russian snipers where she can’t be found.

 

That wall's not going to keep me in

How we finish off the front of the shed needs to provide a suitable escape proof perimeter as well as an aesthetically pleasing edge for the back flower borders.  Rather than use a raised wooden deck which would need continual maintenance, we’re going to make a more solid tiled step using the leftover ceramic tiles from a past bathroom refurb.

 

Recycling leftover tiles

The other half’s face is a picture as I outline this latest landscaping idea.  I think he hates bricklaying more than he hates dithering numpties in supermarkets.  Yes, I know we said you’d never have to lay another brick again but well, this is bricklaying in the same way as Putin’s war ‘isn’t a war’ in the Ukraine.  I’m calling it a Special Landscaping Operation. 

 

Darling, I've had an idea ...

This is definitely the last time ...

This Special Landscaping Operation or SLO will begin with a small two course wall of bricks spanning out from the front edge of the shed’s concrete base. 

 

This is the general plan

The middle part of this brick lined enclosure is to be dug out, levelled off and filled with concrete to create a solid platform that will then be tiled over.  

From the lawn, a low red brick border will be visible at the front and at the side, the brick border will morph into a low retaining wall to replace the rotting picket fence type borders currently in situ.

 

Rotting picket walls to be replaced with a low brick one

The low retaining wall should enable us to raise the level of the soil at the back which will come in dead handy once the builders start digging up the lawn to build a new soakaway as there’ll be plenty of displaced earth to find a home for.  At the same time, the existing flower border is being widened to provide lots more room for plants and shrubs – my future rhododendron garden as it’s a nice part shady area.

The SLO’s off to a good start, the first course of bricks laid and a second course added this weekend which is now drying out.

 

First course of bricks is laid

Followed by a second one to form the edge of our step

With a nice long Easter weekend coming up, I’m praying for sunshine but I think the other half’s sent a petition to the Rain God for a deluge so he won’t have to mix up a ton of concrete to make the tile base.

That Shelby is soooo naughty - unlike me

SHED EXTERIOR

Aaahhh!!  What’s happened to spring?  My patio pots are in complete disarray thanks to gale force winds gusting about.  I hope the recent glorious weather isn’t the last we’ve seen of the sun this year as I’ve still got a shed exterior to paint!

 

Gusting winds wreak havoc on patio pots

I’ve spent hours beautifying the shed’s interior but that’s no good if the outside is left exposed to the elements as over time, the timber will deteriorate or rot in the damp, dingy, British climate.  As the outside is going to be directly visible from the lounge patio doors then that too needs to be pleasing to the eye. 

Continuing the theme from the interior decorative scheme, I’ve decided to paint the outside black and green too.  

The Darth Vader of sheds

Now black may not be everyone’s choice for a shed but I just didn’t really fancy any of the other Cuprinol Shades on offer and creosote is probably well out of fashion and likely to be banned for being super stinky or unkind to the local environment. 

For starters, I’ve applied 2 very generous coats of Cuprinol Ducksback paint in black to the outside and as I’ve plenty of paint to spare, I’ll probably throw on a third coat just to use the tin up once the weather warms up again.

 

Good coverage and goes on well

You get good coverage from a 5L tin of Ducksback.  One large tin easily stretches to 3 generous coats of paint and as long as you apply it when ambient temperatures are high and the weather is dry then you should end up with a nice smooth even look.  Plus at £10 a tin from Homebase it's vastly cheaper than other shed/outdoor paints.

The shed is now looking like the Darth Vader of the back border but rather than appearing to be a dark hulking menace in a corner, I feel the depth of colour provided by the rich blackness makes a fantastic backdrop to the lighter greens of the shrubs/plants close by.

 

Looks rather smart in black

Makes a nice backdrop for green foliage

Now all I need is a few bright, warm days to apply a third and final coat to the exterior and a second coat of green to the window frames then we’ll be almost finished.

Almost done

SHED ART

An Emporium of Curiosities has to contain curiosities otherwise it would just be a shed so I’m adding an extra dimension to the interior by creating a back garden art gallery filled with priceless paintings.

 

Create your own art gallery

These objects d’art are masterpieces created by the kids many years ago and which I feel deserve to be on display for everyone to enjoy.

 

Artist self portrait

The truth is stranger than fiction

My son's Picasso period

Inspired by Watership Down?

This one is my own effort

Under each window, I’ve created collages made from all those gig tickets and flyers that I’d saved for posterity. 

 

What to do with all those old posters/gig tickets?

I think I've just the perfect place for them

Create a fond memories wall

By sticking them together to form a collage

It’s far better for them to be on show in the shed than have them gathering dust, long forgotten in that brown suitcase under the bed.  Now each time I visit the Emporium, I’ll have fond memories of great nights out every time I gaze at the collages.

 

Remembering good times of the past

Sssh!  Is that the phone ringing?  I'm sure it'll be The Tate wanting to book this marvellous artistic collection for their gallery.

Good enough for The Tate

I think they want to book my collection