An English Country Garden

The garden was one of the most attractive features of the property.  Filled with perennials, it had become overgrown and needed some TLC to restore it to its former glory.
Unable to do too much inside during our second summer at the house (renovations were fully underway at this point but not ready for decorating), we turned our attention to the garden.  Once again one job led to another and the list grew longer:

1.  rebuild the deck which was rotting out and add a pergola.

2. take down part of the fence above the stone wall.
3. put in a pond for my mother's fish which she had brought with her from our previous house.

4. remove the grass (now overgrown with weeds - mainly lambs ears) between the deck and flower bed and put in a gravel path.  We investigated the possibility of a laying flagstone but it was costly to have it done professionally and we didn't have the time or energy to do it ourselves.  

5. Paint and recut the fence around the upper level of the yard turning it into a white picket fence with an arbor.  
6. Build a garden shed where the propane tanks used to be at the side of the house.

7. Paint and replace the trellis fence which used to hide the propane tanks at the side of the house.
8. Remove the old Manitoba maple tree closest to the house - a necessity once we found it was full of carpenter ants and was rotting from the inside out according to Doug the tree specialist who was surprised it hadn't fallen on the house already.  A costly job but fascinating to watch.  Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted all my pictures of this event.

AND THIS WAS JUST THE BACKYARD -
We also had a list for the front yard:

1. Dig and plant a border bed along the front pathway.
2. Add an oval bed on the front lawn - mainly as a place to put the earth dug out from the pond and erect a sign, "Nine Gables" in this bed.
3. Add landscape lighting along the path and to light up the sign. 
4. Paint the railings on the front and side porch white.
5. Build a cover to hide the hydro meters on the front porch. 



Before



After

New Front Porch