Wednesday, May 23, 2007

The Gone-House

Hello and welcome to Gardener’s Corner...

Yes, the wife and I spent the entire weekend playing Charlie Dimmock and Alan Titchmarsh in our many acred garden. I’ll leave it up to you to guess who played which role.

What brought on this sudden splurge on greenfingeredness?

Answer: getting rid of the humungous greenhouse that came with the house when we bought it back in March of this year.

I’d actually put the ruddy thing on eBay for the princely sum of £1 with the proviso that the buyer must collect and dismantle it and I quite expected to get no more than a tenner for it.

Imagine my surprise then when it sold for a whopping £142!

A nice gardening mad couple from Northants bought it and the poor things spent 7 hours on Sunday taking it down. I actually felt quite sorry for them as none of us had any idea it would require quite so much work. It seems the original construction crew had sealed every individual pane of glass so the poor gardeners from eBay had to painstakingly cut every single pane of glass out before they could unscrew the frame. Talk about determination. Amazingly they only broke 4 panes which is pretty good going.

Anyway, we felt so sorry for them we ended up refunding them £40. I know. We’re soft touches but as I said I would have been happy with a tenner provided someone else did all the hard work of taking the greenhouse away.

Not that I’m a complete lazy dog you, understand – I spent most of Saturday and Sunday with my loppers and my trimmers hacking back the Forest of Arden that had sprung up around the greenhouse and its environs and uncovering various lost cities and civilizations that had risen and fallen in the verdant depths of the undergrowth.

I worked up quite a sweat I can tell you.

Now, as you can see from the before-and after photo, our garden feels like it’s gained a couple of extra acres with all the space that has been opened up. The plan is to move the paving slabs nearer the house to make a patio and then to turf over the area where the greenhouse once stood thus extending the lawn even more.

After that who knows? Herbaceous borders. Vegetable gardens. Roman water features.

Whatever. Charlie and I will be sure to fork and trowel our eager little bulbs into the hot earthy beds with fertile abandon...

Oo-er? Or Oh-ar?

9 comments:

MOTHER OF MANY said...

I dream of a garden big enough to have green house in it, if I wasn't so lazy I would consider moving to somewhere with a lot more space.

TimeWarden said...

I can guess who played which role but it might have been more fun the other way round! And, I bet the novels of Alan Titchmarsh aren't on your reading list!!

-eve- said...

This was pretty interesting. It gives me an insight into Ebay, too - it works so well! Glad you got such a good price for the greenhouse, plus labour thrown into the bargain....:-D

Steve said...

Ally, yes the big garden is great but maintaining it is something else! Takes a lot of time and work just to keep it ticking over nicely.

TimeWarden - I can honestly say, hand on heart that I have never ever read one of the Titchy one's novels. And I don't ever intend too. Now, if Ms Dimmock wrote a bodice ripper... that would be a different story.

Hi Eve, yes, I'm now thinking of trying to buy a chain-gang on eBay so that I can get the patio built! ;-)

greenfingers said...

Wow - do Tris and I have rivals in the horticultural hustings?

That reminds me of when Tris sold our glass stone henge on ebay, and some poor buggers drove from Poole, yes, the south coast, to London, to come and get it for 99p.

http://worddaddy.blogspot.com/2006/03/stonehenge-on-ebay.html

Steve said...

Hi Greenfingers, yes I well remember Tris telling me about that! To tell you the truth it was partly what gave me the idea of flogging the greenhouse on eBay in the first place.

As for being horticultural rivals... I think we've a long way to go yet before we're even playing the same game as you let alone being in the same league! A brand new pair of branch loppers does not a Monty Don make!

Old Cheeser said...

I want a garden! You're so lucky!

But how do you fit it all in, Steve the polymath?

Steve said...

By having no social life, Old Cheeser! Seriously! KAren and I go out once in a blue moon... we just don't have the time, money or energy. I'm pretty much in bed by 10.0pm! 9.30pm on a bad night! Not quite the rock 'n' roll lifestyle I'm afraid...

Old Cheeser said...

Mmm sounds that way. Maybe you should take a night off every now and then...treat yourself!!