Getting outside in our garden

It's March already! Where did February go? For me it went by in a bit of a blur, with busy times at work surrounding a fortnight of being unwell with a flu-like virus. It's been month of trying to catch up on tasks. I'm pleased to say I'm almost back on top form, I'm still feeling a little tired at times but at last I really do feel like myself again. Woo hoo, I'm back! With the return of my energy and a clear head, I have felt a renewed enthusiasm and desire to make a start on a few key projects for the year.

Over the weekend I was planning on preparing our spare room to do some re-decorating but the allure of the mildish weather on Saturday took over. At last after months of waiting, it was time to get out in the garden and take the first step to kick start our garden project.

Gardening is one of my real loves, it's a hobby I adore and one that I can happily spend all day outside doing. Last September we moved house, leaving behind our unique sunken courtyard garden and a life of container gardening. We now have a lovely south-facing outside garden with soil, plenty of light, more space, and a garden surrounded by three walls that create a great feature of the space.

The space at the moment is looking a little unloved and we have planned to overhaul the garden we have inherited from the previous owners and make it our own. At the back of the house we're planning on replacing or refurbishing the rendering on the back of our house, laying a new patio and making the garden more functional that fits more closely to our taste.

I've been wanting to get out in the garden for a while but the cold weather has really put me off. It's been so hard seeing the garden so sad and unloved, I didn't get round to planting any bulbs at the end of last year so all my pots are empty but there are a few crocuses starting to appear in the beds already in the garden.

Overhauling the garden space is a big job and you have to start somewhere. For me it meant starting to remove the overgrown plants that have started to take over the space.

This is what our garden looked like before I started:

And here it is a little later...

and by the end of the afternoon it looked like this...an almost blank canvas!

I am so pleased with the progress I made in just a few hours. I've still got to dig out the roots and stumps of the plants I have cut back, but it's a great start to the project.

Once the garden was cleared I had the chance to measure the size of the space and see what room we have to play with. I've started drafting a few plans for our garden that I will share with you soon. Over the next few weeks I'm hoping to get stuck into some research and create a project plan for the garden. I can't wait to see this project progress over the next year or so.

I hope you'll pop back and find out how I'm getting on.