I built a garden with my Dad - Finishing the garden project

Seven months ago I moved into this house and pretty much instantly got to work renovating the garden. Thankfully my dad, who actually spent much of his working life as a landscape designer, agreed to help me with this project, which I was very happy about because it was going to be a big one. Over the winter we went through about five skips, bashing out concrete and removing stone to make way for more flowerbed space. This was by far my least favourite part of the project. Although we still managed to have some fun times throughout all the work. It was then time to bring back some material in the shape of MOT type 1. This was flattened and would make the base for a lovely decorative gravel surface. The front garden was also getting a makeover, being split into three sections, patio, grass and border. My dad explained to me the importance of levels in a landscape. Why is it that the rice fields in the mountains and the hillside vineyards look so spectacular? It's the contrast between the sloping landscape and the perfectly level terraces. Okay, my garden isn't on a mountainside but it's the same kind of principles. None of the patios in my garden were previously level and so when we relayed them nice and flat it suddenly looked so much more bold and interestingly it looked bigger too. One of the main jobs over the past month or so has been finishing the last bit of patio in the front garden. This would be the final bit of hard landscaping before we could finally just play with planting. I once again took charge of the cement mixer whilst my dad accurately laid the paving slabs. Are you fed up with laying paving yet dad? I was fed up with paving quite a long time ago. The funny thing is, this is really weird, I'm just getting my eye in and I'm actually finding that I'm now laying them better than I was, quicker than I was, because I'm seeing the level I was having to, you know, check and double check every one and I was often miles out so just when I've got into it I'm never doing it again. So what you're saying is you're basically professional now. We're nearly there, the final bit of paving. My dad has just arrived and today the plan is to finish the hard landscaping in the garden. We've got one little bit of patio to go, we've got to lay a few slabs and then point it up and then I think we're done. It's going to be a nice warm day I think. Hello. If we can get the pointing done today and the last little bits of paving sorted out, clean up the edges, I'll be very very happy. One of the things that I have absolutely loved about living in the countryside over the past eight months is being surrounded by so much wildlife. Just from this garden I've been lucky enough to see goldfinches, long-tailed pits, there's blackbirds in the garden with babies now, I hear the tawny owls each night, just across the valley I recently saw some barn owls, they're my favourite birds, and in the little nest box on the side of my house that I put up when I first moved here there's been baby bluetits which has been a great fun to watch, the mother constantly going in and out feeding them. Being surrounded by all this nature is definitely where I feel best but I find it very easy to forget that not everywhere is quite this thriving with wildlife and it's why that I'm once again proud to be partnering with Planet Wild. Planet Wild is a nature protection organisation funded by over 20,000 members now, it's a bit like crowdfunding for nature and every month we as the community fund a new mission, this might include rewilding projects, protecting forests or finding ways in which humans can work alongside nature without destroying it. Planet Wild do a cracking job documenting the work that they're doing, you can see exactly where the community's money is going, they make monthly videos and text reports to show you exactly where the money is being spent and so you can see the impact that your support is having pretty much instantly. Like in one of their latest missions where they helped connect different pieces of wilderness basically by planting many many trees, contributing to the longest biodiversity corridor of South America. I've obviously heard all about the Amazon rainforest but I've never heard of the area just south called the Cerrado and it was interesting to see all the work that they're doing there. So if you want to support Planet Wild too then I'm giving away a little gift to the viewers of this video, the first 100 people to sign up using my code justalex6 will get their first month paid for by me, after that you can choose to give however much you like, don't worry you can cancel at any time but I hope you find all the stuff they're doing as interesting as I do. And if you want to see what Planet Wild are all about then definitely check out their videos, there's a link in this video's description to their mission where they are building South America's biggest wildlife biodiversity corridor which was super interesting to watch. Anyway let's get back to the garden where we've got some planting to do. We've got a new thingy and it's too high so we've got to cut it down to the right level and then put the lid back on. So I'm going to use the grinder to cut it down to the right level. So we want to go maybe there. That one? Yeah. This is a little bit irregular, it's not really how you should do it but it's a solution and because Alex knows this is where it is, if he ever needs to get to this or any service people need to get to it, we know where it is and it can be accessed. Some sand, slab, it looks just like a normal patio but this slab can be lifted up, the sand can be brushed off and the plastic taken up and the inspection cover's just as normal. I wouldn't recommend doing this but there you are. There's a technique, if you want to get it in a hole, find your hand. Now just the last few little bits of paving. I've got this little stone here which I accidentally snapped off last time. That's gonna go in here. Right well onto the pointing. I made the mistake of forgetting what pointing mix we used last time. If this was mixed up differently to last time's stuff then you'll very clearly see the colour change. So I did a test, it wasn't the right mix and I think it was actually two of these and one of these and one of these. It's a mistake anyone could make. That reminds me of what it looked like last time. So you're gonna get on with the pointing and I'm gonna cook your breakfast. It's amazing what difference the pointing makes as soon as that gap has been filled up and smoothed out with the dibba-dobba tool. What is it called? It's called pointing. What is the tool called? Pointing. Good joke. It's called a donger. Donger, the double-ended donger. As soon as you've double-ended dongered it, it looks grey. We're just tidying up the edge of the patio ready for the topsoil, the final bit of topsoil that will be coming soon. I'm tidying it up. I'm putting things in bags. Well yeah, you are now. Now the camera's on, you are. I believe this is a variety of clematis and now that I've cleaned up all the edges inside here, we have space to put more soil in. I think what was growing in the gaps in the paving before was erigeron, which is like these little daisy-like flowers which seem to grow really well with basically no soil. They're just growing the little cracks and I'd really like that to grow in here too, so I'm not too worried about the soil in the bottom of this being really stony, but we'll put a bit more soil on top and then this will be ready to plant in. How's your pointing going? My pointing is going. Do you want some more mortar? Some more pointing mix. I think one more will do it. Okay. Is that too wet, that last one? You've got the hang of it now. From here you can clearly see the different like levels that we've created. This is the highest level where we sit and enjoy our dinner. Drops down onto the wonderful green luscious grass where we can play football and then it drops down again to the flower bed which is the final piece of the puzzle. I'm good at getting distracted. Pruning always looks so destructive and I feel bad sometimes doing it because it seems unnecessary and the plant is losing limbs, but this pruning I think, I hope, will create a much better shape of hedge and it will clear the hawthorn from the birch tree and over time as well by pruning the hawthorn back it will branch out lower down and create more of a hedge. You can see there's actually a gap now between the birch leaves hanging down and the hedge. I'm pretty happy with the patio and I'm even more happy that there's no more patio to lay. It's been a solid six seven months of working with hard materials and I can finally say that that part of the project is over. I think other things might crop up in the near future but as far as I'm aware that's the last bit of patio laid and it's time to start thinking about the planting. Over the past few weeks we have actually made a start on planting up the back Mediterranean garden. I had quite a few plants that I started from seed earlier on this year which were getting too big for their containers. My dad got some plants from his garden and divided them and we also bought a few plants here and there. I'm very lucky in that the house came with a very mature wisteria and a few weeks ago it's been putting on a lovely display of flowers. It's just come to an end now but the Mediterranean garden is looking lovely. There's flowers popping up here and there. The two palms are in place and I'm really happy with them. But the main planting project now is this garden. This huge space. It feels huge. We've got to fill it with plants. Last week myself and my dad did some plant shopping. It's the only type of shopping I think I enjoy. Plant shopping and food shopping are the two best things. We went to Evergreen nursery, picked up loads of nice ferns. My dad said when I asked him how much these were he was like $6.50. I thought he meant $6.50 for a tray. Turns out they were $6.50 each. So I ended up spending quite a lot of money on ferns but I'm not too disappointed about that because they are beautiful. Three different types of ferns. They're all going to be going in that corner by the tree ferns so it's going to be a very ferny shady corner. My favorite buy from today is a very wet Fatsia. My second favorite buyer today is two choices and then my third favorite buyer today is this Mahonia which will come into its own in the winter. It doesn't look very nice right now but it will hopefully. Mildew? Dirt on the leaves. No I think it's mud. Look at all that green. There's a lot of green there. We haven't yet got any of the perennial flowers that I plan to get but there's a start. We're working on the structural plants first. Look at the different textures you have with ferns. I also went to a local garden center which has a pretty good selection of plants. I bought some pre-annual flowering plants and some salvias. I bought another banana as well. I couldn't help it. We're gonna put in this one. I want the biggest ones. I want to get the most for my money. The maximum ground cover. Oh no in the side. We got two baskets of plants in with the compost and the shoes. What's that for? It's for playing with at the park. The upper mediums are always nice. Yeah. But people think of them as just being a sort of bog standard ground cover plant but I think they're beautiful. What did you get? Oh wow. That's nuts. I've wanted one of those for ages. A bootalong. Megabotanicum. Three different geraniums. Of course. Do you think you might be starting to get addicted? No. No? No. I used to have a problem. Did you have a fun time shopping? It's always fun shopping plants isn't it? Ferns. I will see you back at my house, back at the garden where we will be planting up all of these plants. Have a safe journey plants. So we're just waiting for one more load of topsoil to bring the level of the border up a little bit and then the planting begins. It's so lovely to be able to now sit on the lawn. It's dry to the touch. I've been watering it most days because it's been so hot recently and I've been cutting it every other day to try and keep it looking nice and yeah I'm really happy with it. It's the first lawn I've ever had and I'm enjoying looking after it so far. Yesterday I finished putting in the topsoil into the back garden. There was just a couple of beds I needed to fill and now I've got to put the rest on the front garden. Some of it down here and then I've also got to put a load in here. It's going to be another good few hours of barrowing. I was so lucky last time I had the help from my brother and dad. This time it's going to take quite a while. Well we've done quite a bit this afternoon. I've got sweat dripping down my face. It's so hot and uncomfortable. I think I'm going to rake this out now. That's the last bit of moving soil I'm going to do for a while. Now comes the fun part. We can plant up the garden. It's Saturday morning. There's no place I'd rather be than in the garden planting some plants. I've got a variety of things that I'm putting into the Mediterranean garden in this shady corner, mostly consisting of these evergreen ferns. They're very pretty and then I've also got this rather wonderful geranium. These apparently thrive in part shade. I thought it would be ideal for this spot. Get some early morning sun and then I've also got some virginias which I dug up from the front garden. These were originally here. I found them lost in the hedge so I dug them up and they're going to be along here. Lastly a couple more of these are going in. These are Hyconocloa macra, the green variety, and because we've used them a fair amount throughout the rest of the garden it should tie this corner in nicely. These also do well in shade. We've gone for the sun loving plants on that side which is facing south and then over here we've gone for more ferny like things which do well in the shade. One more plant, the last plant to show you, is this. This is another evergreen fern. It's Aspillenium. I see these growing wild all over the place near here so I figured I should probably grow one. They obviously do well in this kind of soil. The root ball has really filled out the plant pot. It's the tricky thing with gardening is that you can't just decide the plants you're using and just say where they're going and think that it'll be all okay because different plants thrive in different sort of conditions. Some need full sun, some don't need much sun at all, others need a bit of both. And then to break up the ferns I'm going to put in this grass. Now this little plant here will actually grow quite large. It'll probably spread all the way out like this eventually over obviously the course of a few years. I have no idea with a lot of these things that I'm planting just quite how it will all look after it all matures so there's a lot of trial and error. These virginias have sort of soft rounded leaves which are quite a contrast to the ferns and the geraniums behind and they have these sort of tubers where the plants grow off. When these are in large big clumps where the leaves grow nice and big they look really impressive so I'm hoping they grow well and they fill out this area nicely. It's time to flatten all the hills. It looks like we've got one giant mole in the garden. I'm just trying to work out the final positions for the tree ferns. These are pretty big plants and I only really want to put them in the ground once. I don't want to be digging them up and moving them around so I'm trying to work out where best to put them. My dad reminded me that they grow massive long leaves and so you don't want to put them too close to anything else so these are actually spread apart so much more than I would have naturally thought. I think this is a nice position for them. I also need to bear in mind all the different viewing angles. You don't always view the garden from the same place so I'm going to go indoors, look at it out through that window, stand on the patio, sit down, look at it from that angle and yeah try and make it look nice from all the different places I'll be viewing it from. I think I'm happy with it. It's time to dig some holes. So these plants are called Dixonia Antartica, naturally growing in very humid rainforests as an understory plant. They do well in shade and very humid conditions. The wall of the house is facing west so they do get evening sun but I'm hoping that they are at least a little bit shaded in the morning by the wall of the house as well as the pittosporum tree behind me and when the hedge grows up behind me that should also give it some more shade but I think I will have to try and keep on top of the watering making sure it's always a little bit damp and humid how it likes it but these plants interestingly have roots in their stem. If you look closely you can see all the roots coming out so when you water it you can simply spray water all around the stem. Also something that I've noticed which is quite interesting is a little oak tree seedling coming out of the stem. Squirrels like to bury acorns in the stem of these in these little pockets and one of those acorns has germinated and is growing out the side. I think I'm gonna leave it because it's quite a nice addition. Yes it's in the ground first tree fern in I'm so happy with it it's such an incredible plant I'm so happy with the tree ferns. Another one of today's plantings will be this pittosporum evergreen shrub this one has beautiful purple foliage the new foliage is more green but it looks lovely at this time of year and this plant will really soften this edge of patio because it's where the two bits of patio connect and it's also where there's a step so you'll hardly notice that step anymore once this grows a little bit. This is the view looking from the border towards the house you can see the ground is all prepped ready to plant in it's quite daunting how much space we've got this whole bed here between the patio and the grass to plant up and then we've got all of this space. I've just popped in the three tree ferns and then a little pittosporum on the corner but we're going to start now placing plants all around this bed and here's the view looking from the patio towards the border annoyingly there's still loads of bags of rubble and bark mulch over there and over there but I'll move them out shortly. I've been waiting to plant these out for ages these are ricinus cast oil plants they get about 10 foot tall they have been growing on in the greenhouse for the past few months I really should have planted them out a while ago but finally we can get these in now these are annuals they they won't survive the winter and so they get quite big all in one year so before the pre-annual stuff that I'm going to put in sort of matures and gets big these will fill up the spaces it's a way that I can make the garden instantly like grown up and impactful in one year because yeah like I say lots of the other things we're planting will take many years to form larger clumps and kind of look nice I've also got quite a few of these bronze fennel which I'm going to scatter around they have lovely wispy foliage so I'm going to pop some lemon as well it's just started raining which isn't a bad thing because it means the things that I've just put in the ground will get a nice soaking so over there we have a choisea shrub and I wanted to have two more of them one which is going to go there and the other one which is going to go next to the house my thinking being when you look out it sort of brings you from here to there and then over there make sure eyes move across the garden that's the plan I don't know if that'll work also the choisea has loads of white flowers in May so it'll be three white balls spread across the garden and that plant as you can see is ready to be planted and the good thing about plants and things which I already have in the garden is I know that they like the soil so I'm pretty sure this choisea will do well because the other one has next up the grasses these will form much of the structure of the garden during the summer these verbena they don't have the most impressive foliage but they do have wonderful flowers these are going to be out very soon but I want these to be just poking out the top of all the grasses so there's going to be grasses in the foreground grasses behind and then these sort of waving in between it means you don't have to look at all the foliage you just see the nice flowers coming out the top again that's just a plan I don't know if it'll work these also self-seed very well so I'm just going to put three in and hope that they set plenty of seed this summer and then I'll have loads more next year all scattered around the garden today is bark mulching day we're going to put a layer of bark mulch over the whole garden this will do a few things it will make the garden look slightly more polished slightly more finished and neater but it'll also suppress weeds and also introduce organic matter into the soil so there's multiple benefits of bark mulching one last push get the bark on and make it look like I've done a good job well that's as much as we can do today we've run out of bark mulch you always need more material than you think you'll need we needed more topsoil than I first thought we needed more gravel in the back we needed more type one and we need more bark mulch so we're going to finish it off in a few days time I'm also really excited about the addition of two beehives they add a wonderful feeling to the garden and are incredibly calming to watch we've just put down the final bit of bark mulch and it's so surprising how much better it looks already I know we've got a long way to go with the plants maturing but we put that last bit of bark mulch on it suddenly feels somewhat finished it's like you're decorating your house and it's not until you put the carpet down or or the floor tiles or laminate or whatever you put on the floor when the floor is finished it's finished it looks done and it doesn't quite work until you do that and the the bark does that gives you a nice background for the plants the plants look better against dark bark than they do against soil looks scruffy and after a while it will all disappear into the soil and make the soil better while the front garden was mulched with bark the back garden was actually mulched with gravel to blend the gravel paths into the bed seamlessly the back garden was already coming alive with flowers blooming all over the place and I just can't wait to see how it develops over the coming years I wanted some of your help because you're a landscape designer but I didn't quite realize how much you would help my gardening started in my parents garden when I was only about five planting things and messing about and then I made a fish pond and planted this and planted that as I have been trying to retire this physically this has been hard my shoulder and my neck haven't been great and I shouldn't really have done as much as I have but it's relatively easy to do because you know you're doing it for the right reasons but also because I'm doing it knowing that it is the last landscaping job I'm doing it's sort of a nice way to finish my gardening career really this is sort of the last major job and now I go home and look after my own garden for now though shall we go for one last pint at the pub oh lovely thanks for all your help by the way I really appreciate it I'm very happy with the garden and I am massively in debt to you as I always have been cheers so that's the garden's hard landscaping and some of the planting done and now I just have to be really patient because the garden won't really be finished for years it takes a long time for a garden to mature and look at its best and that's where I just have to be patient but I'm excited to document the change that this garden goes through on these videos I'll try and give you regular updates to to show you how different plants evolve throughout the season and how the garden develops over the years before I go I once again want to direct you over to planet world where the first 100 people to sign up using my code justalex6 will get the first month paid for by me and if you want to check out their videos click on the video which is on screen now where they are building the biggest wildlife corridor in South America a super interesting watch I'd highly recommend checking it out anyway thanks so much for watching I'll see you soon