Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

redofromstart

Looks spot on, perfect for the two of you. Any thoughts on more planting  (or not) round the edges? I'd go with herbs for the standing on smells and supposed fly repellent properties. 

rtandon27

ooooooo - Cheery your patio is just lovely - it's always nice to have a spot to drink a cuppa and enjoy the fresh air! - your plodding on has really paid off! - I had a little chuckle to see your glass ball in a pot as I too have one of those and OH doesn't understand why!

As for yesterday, I was headed to work (in the big smoke) - LOL - everyone else was headed to the commemorations - I was actually having a bit of a moan in my comment above, though it did not come across as such, as all those dressed to the nines were also noisy and lacking in early morning commuting manners - LOL - I missed our village commemorations as well as was commuting home during the actual service and too zonked out by the time they lit the beacon so could not summon the energy to walk down to the park to watch it being lit!

KajiKita

That little patio looks lovely - well done 😊
Some nicotiana might be nice for evening scent? 

KK

Cheery_Daff

Thanks all 😊 There's actually quite a lot already in the pots, although you can't really see from that picture and they do need shifting around a bit. There are two roses on the right hand side, a peach coloured one going up the wall, and a fantastically prolific and scented pink one in a pot behind. There's some St John's Wort which has lovely yellow flowers and gives a bit of height when it gets going. And there's a lavender, and a borage, and a few different flowers too. The light was going yesterday, and some of it hasn't really got going yet. 

Not thinking too much about pots yet (although I do have some birthday flowers to go in as well, and a mint). Next job is the edging - won't really look like fancy edging, more just big stones to make sure the patio ones don't slip too much as they're not fixed in. 

Not this morning though, as it's p*ssing down! I did manage to get up to go swimming - there were 11 of us in the slow lane and it was FAR too many, lots of jostling and overtaking and trying to wait for a gap 🙄 At our pool you book a 45 min session - I was late (as usual) but there were already 8 in at that point, more were added, but nobody got out, not even as I left at 8.45... 🤔 Nobody polices it, and it doesn't usually matter, but today was just a bit crowded! 

Pleased I used my membership though - I paid £24 in May and didn't go once 😱 I'll cancel if I don't use it all in June - I think I have to go 5 times to make it worthwhile.

Rather alarmingly I seem to have relocated a spider from home to the changing room in my towel 😱 Sorry fellow swimmers! 😱 One less in the house, I guess.... 

Right, home for breakfast, and as it's raining so much, and Mr Cheery will be in bed, I might treat myself to a luxurious daytime bath 😃 I do like a daytime bath when the weather is grim, and I can have a nice long read.

Cheery_Daff

Well, I am having a lovely day 😊 Swimming, a nice read in the bath, a tasty lunch, two loads of washing on the line, and an afternoon in the garden. I built a little rockery wall to go round one side of the patio! 😊


😃 It's just a pile of stones really - there are quite a few of these little 'walls' round various sections of the garden (not made by me) so it's quite in keeping, and both wedges in the tiles so they won't move, and gives me a place to plant some of the rockery plants i got for my birthday 😊😊 Very pleased with it. 

Also meant I could use some of the stones from when we removed the massive old stone chimney inside the house 😱 They've been sat in the garden for 5 years so are nicely covered in moss already 😂

I'm going to do similar at the other edge of the patio, but not today, sick of picking up heavy things now and the sun has gone in again so it's a bit chilly. 

Going to spend an hour watching the TV and using the IPL machine (productive without being energetic 😂) then I think food, put some clothes away (including the last of the holiday unpacking), flute practice, and I might even make a start on amassing a clothes pile for Vinted...

themadvix

The patio and the wall look absolutely fab Cheery. I had to show your pics to Mr MV as he’s been admiring the dry stone retaining walls and their natural alpine/ferny planting at Harlow Carr this weekend. 

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, lovely 😊 These are just small pikes really rather than walls, but it's given me a bit of an appetite for fixing a few of the real walls at some point! 😂

Next outdoor project (once this is finished) is going to have to be the area out the back of the lean to outbuilding. Completely full of nettles and docks, and just gets worse every year - it's now spreading past the electric fence and down into the field, which has an alarming number of docks in it 🙄 Once this patio area's properly done I'll take my scythe to the bulk of it I think as a starting point.

redofromstart

they look spot on. last summer mr redo rebuilt our patio low walls, previously heaps of stone, now neat stone walls with drainage and planting pockets. I'm slowly back filling with sedum etc and dangling plants.  2 x 16 foot runs done and two end patches to go

Fortune_Smiles

That looks wonderful Cheery.  If any more plants are needed I vote Lavender, Rosemary and Wormwood - lovely and fragrant and useful in the house too.

Fortune x

Cheery_Daff

Thanks all. Redo, your walls look lovely! We've got a bit on the other side of the front garden that will need redoing eventually - dry stone wall with a mortared top row, so the worse of both worlds, and a retaining wall with a concrete terrace behind, and the concrete is now collapsing along with the wall Most annoying - but not on the list for this year unfortunately! I may do something similar to what Mr Redo has done eventually. Not entirely sure how to handle the concrete issue - BUT I am NOT going to think about that now, I most definitely will NOT get round to it this year!

Most of the pots have now either got things in, or I've got things sitting in small pots waiting to be planted. Mr Cheery is on a mission to replace the plastic pots with something nicer, but we're not willing to actually pay proper money for them so it will likely take a long time and I'm not sure he's motivated enough for proper freegling right now (and I'm quite happy with the plastic ones for now). I might do a bit of willow weaving to disguise them a little! 

Spent an hour with the IPL machine, did a bit of tidying, emptied the bins, put the meals I cooked yesterday into the freezer, put all the clothes away, retrieved the bedding from the line and draped it round (couldn't tell if it was still a bit damp or just cold). Gathered 3 items of clothing that are beyond repair to cut up for cloths, and spent an hour practicing my flute. Tired now!! 

Oh, and I have ordered myself a sturdy tool for digging docks/ragwort out of the fields. Suspect I'll be fighting a losing battle, but so far I've not done much actual fighting and it shows! Should be here before next weekend, but I'm not starting it before I've finished the patio, one thing at a time... 

Tomorrow is Open Farm Sunday. Anybody going? I was planning to, but hadn't realised you needed to book for our most local one and it's sold out. Hey ho - more time to get on with the patio. Reckon I can finish it tomorrow (if it stays dry for long enough).