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Hi folks. I decided today to make a start towards replacing the crumbling wall surrounding a part of our garden. I thought it would maybe be fun to do a thread to document this, so here we are. I have no idea how long this going to take me or how the finished wall is going to look, as is normally my way, I'll sort of work it out as I go along. I suspect I'll often be sidetracked along the way, as has already happened today. I've been collecting stones for a while now and I don't intend to replace the wall with bricks. Instead I'm going to use stones which are not all of the same type of stone, but that's what I have, so that's what I'll use. The first few photos show the condition the current wall. The first photo is the end of the wall nearest my woodshed and as you can see, it's not looking great.
The wall is only a small one but has been here for many years and is now crumbling badly and really insecure and wobbly at bits. This photo shows the wall behind some of the stones I've collected.
A view of the wall with the large stones moved away from it.
And a more detailed view of the extent of the damage.
As we all love the birds, I'll see if I can photograph some of them along the way, like these Starlings on my neighbour's TV aerial.
I also decided to stuff some straw into a suet ball feeder and hang it in the holly bush in case the birds might like to use some of it as nesting material.
I've decided that probably the best way to go about this is to lay out all the stones that I have and hopefully this should maybe help me to select the stones easier as the build gets under way. The next photo is of the stones that were piled along the edge of the old wall. I've tried to lay them out in a sort of organised way, (to me anyway).
At around this point, Mrs A called down to see if I fancied going to the garden centre with her for a cup of tea. This sounded great to me, so off we went. As is the way of things, we ended up having a light lunch and returned with a new adapter for the garden hose, a 12.5kg bag of peanuts and two new peanut feeders, one of which is shown here. We liked the look of these feeders because the wire mesh goes all the way around the bottom an back up the other side which should help to prevent the peanuts at the bottom from becoming damp, although the Sparrows around here take great pride in preventing this from happening by scoffing as many peanuts as they can, as often as they can.!!
When I got back down the garden to start again, I found that the supervisor had arrived and was carrying out a detailed assessment of the site. This is Tee Tee, one of my three cats. She likes to ‘help’.!!
Assessing and helping can be very tiring however, so it wasn't long before mental and physical exhaustion got the better of her.!!
Mrs A called down the garden again, reminding me that she'd promised the elderly lady next door that I'd dig out a few very small trees that had taken root close to her front door. Also I was to dig out some Peony Roses from the same area as well. I actually broke the first garden fork that I used, but think I may be able to repair it with a small exhaust clamp. I got another fork from the shed, which we actually found lying in the middle of the road when we were out in the car one day.!!(the fork, not the shed).!! I've actually found loads of things lying in the road now that I come to think about It.!! The list includes a pair of safety goggles, one of those hard hats with the ear protectors fitted to it, a small digital camera, three battery powered inspection lamps (all at different times and in different locations) and my most recent find was one of those clamp things that mountaineers use to help them when they're climbing up a rope,.. you know the type of thing? You attach a bit of rope with a loop on it to put your foot in, and as you take the weight off your foot , the clamp thing is slid up the rope and then grips the rope again as you put your weight back on the loop.!! Quite ingenious actually... In actual fact, it’s in the drawer downstairs, I’ll go get it and take a photo of it to show you… back in a ‘tic.......... Here it is..... Thanks for waiting.!!
Never be afraid to stop and pick things up (safely of course), you never know what you'll find. I actually doubled back to get the safety goggles.!! Anyway... I dug up the small trees and Peony Roses but I hate to see things go to waste, especially as they're living things, so the small trees are now planted in my garden and Mrs A found a place for the Peony Roses. I've no idea what kind of trees they are but here's a photo of one of them in it's new home, half way down the garden. I put it in the middle of some other plants that Mrs A has got (with her permission of course).
I am in all honesty trying to get back to the wall but the way things went today I was all over the place. Mrs A once again called me to see if I wanted to see a Bee that was on the ground at the front of the house. This is a photo I took before we moved it to a safer location in the garden amongst the plants. It was moving very slowly on the ground.
Whilst I was down on the ground I took a few snaps of a couple of the plants that are out at the front of the house. The first one as I'm sure you'll know is a Heather but I've no idea what the second one is. I'm not great when it comes to idenyifying plants.
Another bit of crumbling wall at the front of the house. I'll have to sort this at some point too.!!
On the way back round to get on with sorting out the stones I thought I take a few pics to show you some other stuff. It may surprise you, but I actually found these tubs (I have two of them) in the field at the back of my house. They were much taller than they are now and someone had made then into garden seats, obviously didn't want them any more and threw them into the field. There is a pile of wood in the corner of the field that the farmer doesn't bother about, so long as it's only wood or garden waste. Every now and then he sets fire to it. It’s really handy actually as all of our trimmings and stuff can go out there without the need for us to bag them up and take them to the council's waste centre. I cut the top off the seats, painted them up, and Mrs A planted some sort of butterfly friendly plants into them.
I also found this small tree lying in the field, minus a pot. I rescued this as well and put it in a pot over the winter. I planted it today in another bit of the garden but have really no idea what it is.
A view looking down the garden from the other side of the fence from the barrel planter. I built the wee hand cart thing myself out of some wood that I had lying around. Mrs A puts flowers in it in the summer and it looks really nice. The wheels were bit of a nightmare to build and I tried to persuade Mrs A that a broken cart with only one wheel would be nice, but she was having none of it. I had to build the second wheel.!! It's full mostly of the soil you get free from the council recycling centre once a year, mixed with some garden centre compost as well. The box behind the cart to the left which looks like an oversized Rabbit Hutch is Harry's house(one of my other cat's). I actually built it for Tee Tee when we moved here but she looked upon it with spectacular indifference. When Harry adopted us he moved in without a second thought. He has a comfy bed in the top half where it is nice and dry.
Heading back to continue with the wall, I took a photo of some House Sparrows leaving the tree. I'm not sure what type of tree it is but I think it may be a type of ornamental pear willow....I think. It does bear very small, hard, pear shaped fruits every year.
It's a great tree for the birds. It's close to the feeding area and the Starling and Sparrows love it. Another photo of House Sparrow’s in the tree, and arriving at the tree.
A quick stop over for a refreshing drink of Lager Shandy.
An artistic look through the stones.
Since I'm at the bottom of the garden I'd be just as well to show you a view out over the fields at the back. The farmer had been spreading....stuff...on the field the other day but you tend to get used to it...if you know what I mean.!! He puts cattle in here later on in the year so maybe expect a post about cows at some point.
This is my chimney thing that we sit round on the summer nights, and as you can see, it hasn't has the best of winters this year. Another job to add to the list.
I have plans to use this barrel as a Water Butt, but I need to put guttering up on the shed at some time and use the run off to fill the Butt. Yet another one for the ever lengthening list of things to be done.
Almost back to the stones again, but first a quick photo of one of those insect home things that we have in our Holly Bush.
I do have another pile of stones which I now got round to bringing out and organising, but before I show you a photo of all the stones together, I thought I'd introduce you to Harry. Some of you may remember him from an earlier thread, but if you missed that, here he is. He's quite old we think, and he's also a bit deaf, especially with lower frequencies. He has only recently taken to coming into the house for a wee while in the evening, before wanting back out again. He lives outside most of the time. Tee Tee hates Harry and they constantly go through a ridiculous charade where Tee Tee does what we call 'The Slow Walk'. She postures herself and passes by Harry's box with exaggerated slowness, looking at absolutely everything around her..Except Harry.!! He flattens himself to the base of his box during this and watches her intently. Totally ridiculous behaviour from both of them. Occasionally though, it does come to blows, but happily not as often as it used to. This is Harry in the bottom part of his box, pretending he doesn't know that Tee Tee is watching him from further down the garden.
This is Tee Tee, watching Harry from further down the garden, no doubt planning a 'Slow Walk' up past him.(note the condition of the wall behind her).
A pair of Goldfinch paid a brief visit, this being one of them.
And finally, these are all the stones that I have for the wall.
I think there are enough stones here to do the job and if I need smaller ones I can maybe use the sledge hammer to break up some of the more awkward shaped ones. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do this in small steps (mixing the cement by hand) or if I'll maybe get hold of a small cement mixer and try to do it in one go if I can get a good day for it. It’s taken ages to put this post together and I do realise that it did veer off course at bits, but I hope you’ve enjoyed it and I’ll update this maybe next weekend if any further progress is made.
Paul
My bird photos HERE
I'm not sure what happened at the end of the last post I did but I lost all functions including typing. Luckily I was still able to click on the 'post' tab or I'd have lost the lot.!! Anyway, I'll just start off from the last photo of the lawn.
It’s quite difficult to see the holes in the lawn but they should help with drainage and also some of the compost and fertilizer will make its way down into the root system. The mixture of compost and fertiliser was then spread over the lawns as you can see from the next few photos..
..making sure that I got it right out to the edges...
..and a closer view.!!
The rubber rake was then used to give it all a really good going over so that the compost was spread out evenly and worked into all the holes in the lawn.
..and another view. This process leaves the lawn looking really scruffy for a couple of weeks but should do it good in the long run.
The final thing to do was to put the sprinkler on for a good few hours to wash it all in...it never rains when you want it to.!!
I had intended to make this the final update on the wall but it's taken almost three hours to add these photos, so I 'think I'll leave it here for today. The wall is actually finished now and I'll add the final shots at a later date. Hope you've enjoyed.
Thanks folks. The work took almost all day but admittedly I was taking photos amongst other stuff at the same time. If any of you remember the post I did called 'His final Flight' (here) you will see the lump on the Sparrowhawk's head even better there, I actually think the photo of the bird in this thread was taken later in the same day. I seen a Sparrowhawk a couple of days ago but he was going so fast that I never got time to see if it was maybe the same bird or if the lump has got any better or worse. As for difficulties in loading photos, it doesn't seem to matter what I do, they either load easily or they don't, it's just the way it is I suppose.!! As I said earlier, the wall is now complete and I'll update this again when I have a few hours to spare, and I've got another big project coming up but more about that another time.
Brilliant posts Paul. We don't have a lawn, just a mix of wild flowers which I have to cut often (too often). I've alwys wanted one little area with a nice lawn but I've never been prepared to do the work. You put me to shame.
Your sound recording made our cat leap up from Rons lap, so I turned it off, but I got the idea! The stone was a great invention.
Best wishes
Hazel in Southwest France
Great update and photos Paul, I feel exhausted just reading all the work you did lol Love the photo of the Sparrowhawk too, its brilliant.
I've just done work on our lawn here even though we tend to have rubbish moss filled grass on the whole due to the amount of very tall mature trees in the garden which take the moisture/goodness out of the grass, however, with some feed/weed and the Corvids and Cyril to aerate the grass daily it is looking a lot better and greener with the recent rainfall mixed with sunshine - great growing weather and I've had to cut the grass every 5 days so far which is unheard of for this garden ! and yes, it was me, not Mike that did the lawn conditioning and cutting (although I do have a go-kart to ride on for cutting sessions lol ) I walked round with the weed/feed spreader first and it took me three quarters of an hour to cover the whole lawn area pushing the hopper in front of me and a few days later the grass had a cut !! I, like Mrs. A do like a striped finish lol, must be a girlie thing, we prefer the manicured look :) Here is my miminal effort and I know my stripes aren't perfect, I blame it on a wheel balance problem with my ride on, plus having to divert course so I don't frighten the ducks LOL .....
yesterday the ducks took off in front of me flying really low so I had to brake the tractor lol
_________________________________________________________________________
Regards, Hazel
Thanks folks for all your kind comments. The lawn is starting to look good now and should really improve as the weather starts to get warmer.
Birdie: Tee Tee sits there quite often but only uses the wee ladder for coming down, preferring to leap back up.
Hazy: You definitely need the 'sit on' mower for your lawn. You have got it looking great though, it pays to put a bit of work into it. I'll show Mrs A your photos, she'll be impressed with your stripes.!!
Hazel: Sorry for scaring your cat.!!
Hi folks. I've been really busy for the last wee while so I haven't been on the site as often as I'd have liked to have been. At last we've come to the end of the build so I'll just start off with the photos of the final stage. I selected some stones for the final section of the wall.
These first few photos were taken a couple weeks ago. If you look at the growth in the garden in this next photo then compare that with the final photo, you'll see that a good few weeks have passed. This one also shows the old bricks about to be removed.
Once again the tools are brought out and the process of removing the old bricks begins.
A bit further on....
As I was digging along this part of the wall I noticed what appeared to be a large piece of bone sticking out of the ground. With some apprehension, I dug it out, only to find another large piece which looked exactly the same as the first one. This next photo shows the first one I dug out....
A clean up with water and a brush revealed that they were in fact made out of plastic.!! The wee dog next door is now the proud owner of one of the 'bones' and I'm sure he exhausted himself with tail wagging on the day he took ownership of his new toy.!!
I used a couple of bits of wood to get a level for the string line...(The stone in the hole is only there as a guide to help me work out how deep to make the ditch so as to allow enough room for a small foundation as well as the stones in the wall).
The line was used just as a rough guide, after all, it's only a wall.!!
A foundation was put in with a concrete mix, allowed to set, and the first stone of this section was put in.
The next few photos were taken over a few days.
A further section of the old wall was removed.
You may recall that I had been running out of stones. That's no longer the case as I've managed to get hold of some more decent stones as you can see from the next photo. I've lined them up in roughly the order they're going into the wall.
Another foundation is put in...
And the wall creeps on again.!!
Another view...
Just to prove that I don't always drink lager shandy's when I working in the garden, I'm proud to present this lovely glass of diluted orange juice.!! And before anyone asks...no...there isn't any Vodka in it.!!
Meanwhile, Mrs A had come back from gathering plants for her hanging baskets.!!
..the Coo's are happily going about their business...
..and life and death struggles are continuing in the greenhouse.!!
No bird photos in this final update I'm afraid so we'll just move on towards the end. Over the period of another few days the wall slowly but surely was coming towards completion.
Rounding the second to last bend...
A different angle...not exactly geometrically precise....but quite adequate all the same.!!
Another day comes to a close and the tools are ready to be put away for the night (note bone number two in the bucket).!! I tried to get Tee Tee to retrieve it after I'd thrown it up the garden but she just sat there and stared.... firstly at me, then the bone, then me again.!! She's no fun at all at times.!!
Another view of the almost finished wall.....I've no idea who the Lager Shandy belongs to or how it managed to get there.!!!
You may also remember me telling you that Tee Tee sometimes fights with Mad Roof Cat. We hadn't seen him for a while until this sighting ocurred. This is Mad Roof Cat......on the roof of the house across the road from me. (Taken from the front upstairs window of my house quite late on in the evening so the image is a bit dull and grainy).
We're now on the home stretch of this thread so I'll continue on with the last set of photos. A final good sized mortar mix was prepared for pointing the wall to finish it off. I made a decent sized mix to ensure that all the pointing could be done in one go so as the mortar would all be the same colour once the wall was finished.
All of the gaps were then filled in with the final mortar mix (I made it up with a good amount of cement so that it would set really hard to perhaps resist the weather a bit better over the coming years).
The mortar was applied by hand and smoothed off using a small hand brush (like the ones you get in a set with a small shovel). Once all the pointing was done I went over the whole wall again with the hand brush and a bucket of water to remove excess mortar from around the joints.
A few more photos of the finished wall.
I then put back the stone chips that I'd removed before the building began.
At one end of the wall I've put in a lowered part so as the Hedgehog's have really easy access to all of this part of the garden. This is the Hog step, all mortared in and a permanent part of the wall.
And just as a final bit of fun, here are a couple of 'Hog's eye' views of the wall.
The Hog step...
Looking along the front of the wall...
And looking down the path towardes the greenhouse.
A birds eye view. (take note of the bit of lawn that joins the wall, it's not like that any more). I'll tell you a bit about that in a minute.
At last, the final photo in this thread...(sob ...sniff)..!! This is the wall as it was late this afternoon. Also note that Mrs A has painted the fence.!!
Well, as they say, that's all folks. The wall is finished and I have to say that I'm really happy with how it turned out although I'm not really expecting to be headhunted by any major stonemason companies.!! I've learned a lot during this project and I've actually really enjoyed building the wall. I have to say a great big thanks to all of you for following all of this, and also for all the great advice and laughs we've had along the way. I know I've maybe veered off topic once or twice but it's been great fun putting this thread together and I'm maybe just a wee bit sad that it's come to an end. When I mentioned about the bit of lawn that joins onto the wall being different now, there's actually a rather large 'pond shaped' hole that's slowly been appearing there over the last week or so.!! I think I can feel a new thread coming on.....
As one chapter closes another one begins, so the saying goes!! The building of P Hadrian A's wall has been a fabulous & humerous read & so pleased you shared it with us ... looks professional too!
And so ........ onto the pond project, first job is to find a wetsuit & flippers which have fallen off some careless lorry drivers vehicle onto the road!!! Lol
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
What an amazing job Paul, very well done, the garden with new wall looks terrific and it looks like Mrs.A is going to be busy for a while potting up the hanging baskets with those beautiful bedding plants; I haven't even started mine yet but have re-potted 6 waterlilies with new aquatic compost and baskets and split one into two more, plus adding more marginal plants around the edge of the pond much to the Mallards dislike as I used their resting slab as a plant shelf LOL !! Congrats again on a job well done Paul, it certainly adds to your amazing garden so put up your feet and grab another beer as its going to be a nice sunny day :)
Thanks folks for your kind comments. I think the wall should settle in nicely once the weather and a bit of time get to it.
Wendy: You just never know what you may find when you're out on the road. With my luck though, it may turn out to be one of those vintage men's bathing suits that'll be more likely to drag me to my doom once waterlogged.!! I'll need to grow one of those handlebar moustaches though if the total effect is to be correct.!!
Hazy: Mrs A has already got the baskets planted but they're still in the greenhouse at the moment. We usually leave it to around the last week in May or the first week in June before putting the baskets out, there's always the chance of a last minute ground frost up here until after this time. We were out yesterday and Mrs A has now got another supply of bedding plants for the garden. We also had a good look at aquatic plants which was quite exciting but I think I'll leave that for the pond thread when it comes around. I'll hopefully be expecting some good advice from you once again as you have experience with those sorts of things.
Paul A said:Hazy: Mrs A has already got the baskets planted but they're still in the greenhouse at the moment. We usually leave it to around the last week in May or the first week in June before putting the baskets out, there's always the chance of a last minute ground frost up here until after this time.
We're off to The Wirral and Ness Gardens today and taking my Aunt who is also an avid gardener so we'll no doubt get more ideas of flowers/plants/shrubs and trees from there. I better avoid the plant shop lol and just stick to the cafe !