Another busy weekend and the name game

We had a very busy weekend at the cottage. Before I show you our progress, I will show you how the garden looks now. This is at the back end of our garden. There is a row of conifers which are planted more than a meter from the boundry.

This row is followed by two very large holly bushes and a pine tree. They had never been pruned and are overgrown. I cannot do much to save the pine tree unfortunately but I am hoping to be able to severely prune the holly to encounrage it to grow more densely. Right now, all the growth is at the ends of very long drooping and thin branches. You cannot see that from the photos but it looks bad in real life. I am afraid it will die off if we don't do something about it.

As you can see, there is a a long garden extension cord going through the conifers. This is where one has died off and we cut it away. We are using this as an opening while we work.

Here is the work in progress. The fencing is going to be 18 meters long. It will start by the dirt road with a 5 meter piece of living fence which is a metal grid used normally to strengthen concrete. This grid is attached to the wooden posts and then climbing plants are grown over it to eventually totally cover the grid. This is followed by three sections of wooden fencing. Two are up as you can see here. The last 5 meters will be the living fence again. The wooden sections will give us privacy from the start as the next cottage and its driveway are right behind the fence. You can see from this photo how much of our garden was wasted space behind the conifers.

I hope to create a new seating area at the wooden fence. I would like to build a small roofed area there but we have to see how it looks after we start to remove the conifers. There is a fire ditch dug here also so the ground level has to be changed. We will be bringing in about 5 cubic meters of new topsoil to raise this back up to the right height.

I found a tiny yew tree and a couple of holly bushes starting in the fire ditch and want to save them to use in the new beds once I can start planting.

The beech trees are full of nuts this year and we are finding them all over the grass. I had to cut some of my hydrangea since they are so heavily in blossom that we are unable to walk on the path through the side borders. Don't they look pretty sitting on the garden table?

Dena over at SwaddleCottage tagged me for the name game. If you haven't heard, in this game the players must list one fact somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name (if you don't have a middle name you get to pick the name you wish you had) and then at the end of the post you also have to pick one person per letter to tag next (remember to tell them that they're tagged).

L ~~~ Laughter! I love to laugh. I love to sit with friends or family and we can laugh so hard that your stomach hurts. Life looks so much nicer through laughing eyes, don't you think?

Y ~~~ Young at heart! I always tell my mother I have the heart of a 5 year old, the head of 16 year old and the body of ..... well we won't go there! LOL! I think it would be a terrible waste to ever really grow up.....

N ~~~ Never take others for granted! I think a day should not go by that you don't tell those around you how important they are to you. I tell my family 'I love you' each time we talk. Things should never go unspoken as it can really impact other's lives.

N ~~~ Notice the details! It is the little things in life that give it spice. A simple flower in the garden or our cat being silly or the special little items sitting around in a room really do make life worth living. I like noticing those details and find it is the small things that really make me smile. It makes a small thing become something rather large.....

I now have to tag four people so I will tag:

Karen/http://yellowfarmhouse.typepad.com/yellow_farmhouse/

Joanne/http://joyfulblessings.blogspot.com/index.html

Nancy/http://lovelyinchocolate.blogspot.com/

Lynda/http://hedgerowhollow.blogspot.com/