We have eventually broken ground at Nancy Nightingale’s. A rough border shape was marked out, and we began the task of removing the terrible turf. As we were wheelbarrowless (a terrible affliction) the sods were piled into a trug and transported across a 100m assault course (including steps) to be formed into an igloo at the end of NN’s mother’s garden. Whether permission had been asked for this structure I am not sure, all I do know is that she insisted we wore balaclavas. As suspected the soil isn’t great, claggy, low humus content, rocky, a bit icky looking. Strangely it was absolutely packed full of worms, who I would imagine are desperately trying to escape. We have been removing the larger stones, and bricks, and wood, and rags, as we work. It was slow going, back breaking work, but playing Name that Tune and Chuck the Rock into the Pink Bin certainly helped us along.
By the end of the morning we had completed almost half, I measured the garden using sophisticated satelite data and out of 16 Gilly Paces and we have completed 7. During this time Nancy developed an unnatural affection for the half moon, so I have loaned her it until my next visit, in case she gets the urge to continue on her own. Can’t imagine it would be half as fun alone. Who would she play games with ……
Off The Edge Gardening 
Very exciting – a blank canvas😄😄😄
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Yes, and now the first brush stroke has been made I feel so much better. 🙂 x
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Brilliant, what a great time of year to start the new project.
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It is a great time of the year to begin, fingers crossed it turns out for the best.
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The joy of starting from scratch. And the wow of not succumbing to the straight border. Is is a trick of the light or is that bench pink? Ms Nancy does seem to have a penchant for pink accoutrements. She should start a blog to record her progress. I’m saying nothing about blue things though! Flora’s becoming very protective of her territory 🙂
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That bench is indeed pink, fuchsia pink. Ms Nancy loves all things pink or turquoise or orange or lime green, or all of them together. Funny, she said she felt a blog was stirring ….. Love to Flora x
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It’s quite transformed already! Nothing is more boring than a mere rectangle of lawn. I look forward to future developments. I wonder if Nancy would like some cannas?
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She would adore them, just up her street!
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How nice to have such a clean ‘sheet’ to start the garden! I would have used the turf pieces to make a mound and build a small rockery 🙂 but that’s just me liking to see rockery plants everywhere.
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Good idea, I was thinking about using some of it make a turf seat or the like, maybe a spiral or a labyrinth.
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