What did you do in your garden today?

[Giri]

I think that looks excellent, even in ¨potential¨ form it shows how a garden is really enhanced by having different levels.
Are you going to render it, maybe use a capping ...?
Echo it on the other side ...?
I get those big breeze blocks with two square holes in for 70 cents --- it can get a bit more-ish.
Arches are Moorish, that´s another story.

 

[Sean Regan]

The "occasional" showers were too occasional to do much, so I made a start on making new rondels to hide the coach bolts that secure the beams to the support posts of this pergola. Even here from a few years ago, they were "going."

The present ones are replacements for the original ones and are now ten years old and in a sorry state. They are made from quarter inch ply.



The problem with plywood is that if you use a jigsaw on it you can disturb the laminations as you cut it and quite often the back layer splinters as you saw it. For a couple of decades, most wood has come from "sustainable sources," i.e it has the consistency of forced rhubarb. Even so called "exterior" plywood can go this way, as was this supposed to be. They've now delamimated and bits are falling off. This is despite getting repainted every few years.

So I've made a start. In my clearing up of the garage and shed yesterday, I found a couple of pieces of 1" hard wood window sill.

I'm not trying to copy the originals I made, as the wood is too thick for fancy shapes with an old electric jigsaw.
I need to get some more blades to "scallop" the edges as the one I was using was getting knackered and I need a small file to tidy it up. Then start on the second one.

I only spent about half an hour on it, "as I get fed up after a bit."

I know, few people notice these "enhancements," but I do and somehow this seems important to me.

 

[Giri]

That´s a fine bit of wood, which will not look any the worse as time acts upon it.

 

[Andrew_]

Seems like a plan.

If youi're going to cement these in, you might want to put in some drain holes to let any water on the patio drain into the bed, if the fall is in that direction.

I'll have a look. Would love to rip out the patio and start again, but too big of a job atm i reckon. Will try and fill in the cracks with something in the meantime as it's all uneven.

I think that looks excellent, even in ¨potential¨ form it shows how a garden is really enhanced by having different levels.
Are you going to render it, maybe use a capping ...?
Echo it on the other side ...?
I get those big breeze blocks with two square holes in for 70 cents --- it can get a bit more-ish.
Arches are Moorish, that´s another story.

Yeah still a load more blocks to work with. Will probs do the whole corner and may around the path. Will cap with something.

Master plan is to take down the the wall (at the bottom) and put a path going down the middle rather than the side(also connect to the pond). Right side will be raised bed/potential small greenhouse(that side gets the most sun). Pillar will go. Could extend the left bed also, or raise with the bricks somehow

I just need the weather to play nice.

 

[Sean Regan]

That´s a fine bit of wood, which will not look any worse as time acts upon it.

Thanks for that.

Forty years ago I made two two long shelves of this wood on the wall of our lounge about a foot apart for books, VHS videos etc.,
I'd previously lined the wall with 8ft X 4ft teak faced panels. I also made a bookcase in a recess between the wall and a chimney breast.

But we decided a few years ago to take down the shelves and have the wood painted. But we kept the "bookcase" and left the panels behind the shelves unpainted.

The shelves that were behind that sofa (that's gone, we've a different one now) I used to make this bookcase in the hall.

It's a simple construction, two brackets at each end of each shelf and a plywood back make it as solid as a rock. I hate shelves that bend in the middle with just a bit of weight on them. This doesn't.

Timber for bull-nosed hard wood window sills now is a ridiculous price. To buy the wood to make this would now cost over £200.

 

[Giri]

I agree.
I´ve just been chopping chicken on a chopping board made from the front of a drawer from my grandparent´s bedroom suite, bought a hundred years ago.
There´s something special about a nice bit of wood.

 

[Sean Regan]

There's still a lot of Victorian houses around with the original sash windows. These were made of pitch pine. These days. wooden windows aren't worth the bother,

 

[Sean Regan]

I've finished my woodworking chore and the rondels are "in paint."

I'll put them up on the next dry day and give them another coat of Dulux mahogany exterior wood stain, in situ.

I've tried to make them mirror some of the features of the panels I made for the tea-house veranda rail and the ones under the garage pergola.

 

[roadrunner]

As I was inspecting my garden, I noticed my first Monarch caterpillar of this year, but it was on a juvenile plant that it could of devoured in a day, so I moved it to a large adult milkweed. Here's the pics...

 

[Sean Regan]

Still too wet to do anything today.
I'm pleased with the two hebes I bought a week ago, they've put on some growth.

My wife was going to chuck out these miniature roses which were from two of her friends as part of her Christmas present, they were in 4" pots. But I rescued them and gave them bigger pots and fresh compost. So they've got a chance.

The acer palmatums look a bit tatty, but they've plenty of new growth.

 

[Sean Regan]

The new rondels are finished and in place. The old ones had totally disintegrated, I practically only had to brush them off.
The new ones will require a couple more coats of Woodsheen. They'll get that in the next two weeks, "weather permitting" when I give the front of the pergola a "tart up." It has to be done then as once the buds of the wisteria start to develop into blossoms, they are easily knocked off.

I'm quite pleased that I was able to get these done with just what I had in the garage. I'm occasionally expected to do "something, or the impossible, with next to nothing."


We had a problem with the the wood pigeons eating a lot of the food I put out on a tray for the small birds. My wife said yesterday, "Can you make something so that only the blackbirds, sparrows, dunnocks, robins and "Winny the wagtail" can get at the food?"

Fortunately I had saved this cover from a big pedestal twenty year-old fan we binned last year as it was getting noisy. She got me to buy a new one to replace it which is silent and has a remote control!

Don't askl

Anyway, with a bit of tubing and other stuff I found in the garage, I got the job done and the blackbirds and smaller birds are already feeding from it, the pigeons can't, so it's working.

 

[Logan]

Sown some seeds, tithonia, cosmos, calendula,tomatoes and cucumber.

Haven't got pics of the rest.

 

[Sean Regan]

As it was dry and I didn't fancy playing golf today as the course will still be wet (golf buggies are still banned, so there's a clue), so I painted the pergola on the back of the house. It was a pain, as I had to move the patio pots, then the get the ladder between the wisteria and four strands of fairy lights. The buds have suddenly come on, so I didn't want to leave it any later.

I needed fill some rot in one of the small cross beams and I'll have to replace another at some time. This pergola easily supports my 12st any time I need to get up on the flat roof of the extension, to clean the bedroom window or clear the gutter above it. It's not at all dangerous at the moment, but I might as well get it done, one 5ft piece of 4" X 2" will be inexpensive and easy enough to change.

I also gave this some attention.

This is our security fence and door between the house and the garage and prevents entry to the garden.

Well it was sixteen years ago when I built it.

I had to replace four bits of the bottom of the trellis frames, two each side. They'd rotted. I gave the double rail above the featherboarding a coat of Cuprinol. I had to buy two 9ft long strips of wood to cut up to make the new rails of the frame. But they were only a pound each from the local woodyard. They needed a bit of "fettling" as they were a bit wider than the originals.
Still. it's done now and doesn't look much different to what I had. I do need to replace the door at some time. I got it from B & Q and built the frame around it when I made the fence. I'll have to wait and hope they get some the same size in again, otherwise. I'll have to get some tongue and groove wood and re-make it myself.

2004 photo.

 

[Andrew_]

Started knocking the wall down today. Washing basket to transfer bricks up the garden slowing things down slightly

Also running out of space to dump the bricks.

 

[Sheal]

You need a wheelbarrow Andrew, if not tie some rope to the basket and pull it, it'll be easier on your back.