ᐅ Garden Photos Chat Corner

Rose bed

Or
Flower bulbs for blooming from February to May
Stonecrop, yarrow, blue sage, bee balm, ornamental grasses, coreopsis, coneflower, asters

Or edible garden from strawberries to sage and tomatoes. There are also dwarf trees, e.g., peach or currant. Even here, there are options that don’t resemble a typical vegetable garden.

Three weeks of vacation for the garden — three weeks of hard work... Phew — I thought I would just do some gardening, but I haven’t worked with this much concrete during the entire construction phase. I’m so glad we have a wooden house, the dust everywhere is incredible!

And to make things worse, the *censored* crushed sand. Oh my, it really gets on my nerves. I can hardly believe it myself, but I even ended up MOPPING our newly paved terrace at some point because I couldn’t stand carrying that stupid sand into the house all the time.

My friend insists that their paving stones are only ever laid on a concrete bed, and I’m starting to understand why...

Everywhere there’s concrete, masonry panels, concrete, curbstones, concrete...
But we have very little garden space, so we have to terrace in order to get at least some usable area.

We are a bit behind schedule now because the metalworker hasn’t delivered the ordered parts for the privacy screen yet, and that has to be in place before we can continue. The original schedule had us finishing by now.
We’re still quite far from that...

But here are the updates so far.

Behind the house: our main terrace (with that concrete paving and the *censored* crushed sand that’s been spreading all the way into my kitchen since the paving was laid):

The original state with the flowering plum tree, which sadly had to be removed (though it had grown so much that we couldn’t even reach the plums anymore)

:

First, everything was cleared:

It’s quite funny having an excavator right outside the kitchen window:

But eventually, the masonry panels along the neighboring property were put in place, the areas for the curbstones were defined, and the foundation for the outdoor oven was completed:

Then the paving was laid and the base walls for the oven built:

Here you can also see the crushed sand I’ve come to dearly hate, spread over the paving (and from there into the entire house *wheezing*)

By the way, we’re having real problems with this paving (Delgardo from KBH Beton). The paving looks nice, but so far we have had to replace 9 paving stones due to hairline cracks. Very frustrating, because the crushed sand situation starts again from scratch wherever a stone is replaced. We don’t know whether this problem always occurs with this kind of paving, or if one pallet was handled roughly and the stones from that pallet already had small defects. Either way, it’s annoying.

A first taste of terrace life:

I refurbished our old teak garden furniture, so they look nice and new again (cleaned and sanded). I don’t do this every year, but after not taking care of the furniture for two years, it was definitely necessary. Hopefully, in future, thorough cleaning with soap and a scrub brush will be enough.

Then came the soil for the beds and our first plants:

And now, at least here, it already feels more like a garden:

Here you can also see the difference between the paving I wiped (in the front of the picture) and the area where the crushed sand still fuels my frustration (starting from where the grill is).

My pride and joy is our serviceberry tree (grown as a standard):

At the nursery, it didn’t look that big, but when it was delivered, we were quite surprised *laughs*

We had to plant it right away, otherwise, they wouldn’t have balled and burlapped it anymore. The same goes for the velvet hydrangea:

And the bamboo and the ball hydrangea (the small one to the right of the bamboo):

The velvet hydrangea seems to love its new home and is already pushing out new leaves. The serviceberry also feels comfortable, and the little hydrangea, after initially wilting, has recovered well.
We are a bit concerned about the bamboo, though; it doesn’t look as good as in the pictures and has half of its leaves rolled up. However, the landscaper says this is normal for bamboo, so no worries—it will come back!

Looks great! Two questions from one wooden facade owner to another: Wouldn't a gravel strip along the house wall be useful as a splash guard? Is the facade untreated or coated with a wood stain? Cheers!

So that was the garden on the northeast side. Corten steel planters will be added to the ugly neighbor’s wall, and the wall near the velvet hydrangea will get the same cladding as the house. After that, this corner will be almost finished (the oven still needs to be installed, and the compost area is not quite done yet).

But the house still has a few more sides...

Our current problem is that the metalworker who is making our metal elements (the aforementioned planters, some raised beds, and parts of the privacy screen wall we still need to build) is unfortunately behind schedule. So far, on the southeast side, only the retaining wall panels and decking boards have been installed.

Before:

Now:

Where the paving ends, the wooden terrace begins, which continues into the balcony on the south side.

The privacy screen wall, alternating metal and wood, will be installed on the retaining panels facing the neighbor. The decking boards attached to the house are for Corten steel raised beds (herbs in front, tomatoes at the back), and those by the retaining panels will be for a regular garden bed, so we have some greenery.

The "bed" at the front was also paved — this will be the parking spot for our trailer (essentially under the balcony).

Today, the garden landscaper was supposed to bring the metal parts — unfortunately, again nothing. So it stays as it is *hm*

But on the other side, where our front door is, we have made more progress!

Before:

Then with a large pile of gravel:

And then it started:

Finally, no more mud in front of the door!

We paved the carport with our old paving stones — and of course, my much-loved crushed sand was used again here...

We will get a nice step made of shell limestone at the front door — just like our kitchen countertop. But we still have to wait a few weeks for that. The quarry is extremely busy right now because the natural stone delivery from China is currently delayed. Many people are resorting to local stone instead!

Then the driveway was paved:

This is an eco-friendly paving made from brown concrete (Arena), so it was NOT jointed with crushed sand but only with gravel. The finished surface looks a bit darker; in this photo, it still looks dusty. I can’t take a current photo right now because today my mother is getting a new living room window and the glazier’s van is parked in the driveway.

Nummer12 schrieb:

Looks great! Two questions from one wood siding owner to another: Wouldn’t a gravel strip along the house wall as a splash guard be useful? Is the facade untreated or stained? Best regards!

There are deck boards on the house and we have an eave overhang – so I don’t think we’ll have any problems with soil sticking to the facade (after the last two heavy rainstorms here, there definitely wasn’t any). We also mulch around the base.

The facade is natural (untreated).

Unfortunately, the south side still looks like this:

With the stones, we roughly indicated where the perennial flowerbeds will go, and the structure made of steel rods and string is meant to represent the raised bed that will be placed there. And at the far right in the picture, the arena paving stones have just been watered (so they appear much darker than in the image above).

By the way, the raised bed is the only item that the slow locksmith has manufactured so far. Already weeks ago. And since then it has been sitting at the landscaping company:

Unfortunately, it’s the piece we won’t need until the very end... Well, nothing beats good coordination!

Our cats absolutely hate all the activity. Noise every day, vibrating plates shaking the house, and it looks different in the evening than it did in the morning—so annoying! So they retreat, annoyed, to the scratching post:

Only the new beds have found feline approval! You really need to know some nice people to get such a large litter box built just around the corner. With fresh, soft soil and spots where it never gets wet! Simply amazing people

For anyone else with a sloped lot who needs to terrace: So far, we’ve spent about €25,000 (without the steel raised bed), and we don’t have much slope!