No green fingers here

It has been exceptionally hot in London the past week or so and whilst I'm not complaining as hot days here are few and far between, I have never had a little one to deal with in the heat.  What's great is although he hates the sun in his eyes, he loves greenery.  In particular, trees and flowers and picking his own leaves.  My son finds it hilarious and fascinating that when there is a breeze, the leaves flutter.  Oh to be a baby again!

Since moving into our new house which is no longer new as we have been here for a year and half, doing up the garden has definitely not been a priority.  When we bought the place one of the selling points was supposed to be the "mature and easily maintainable" garden.  Neither my husband or I are gardeners, we have no idea what to do, when to do it and aside from cutting grass (very occasionally) have never had to deal with a garden before.  This posed two problems.  One, that we would have to learn and fast how to deal with a garden mature or not.  Two, how would I be able to assist with the garden and get it into the shape I wanted it so we didn't have to deal with it when our baby arrived.  As you can imagine, a pregnant woman and her husband with only two hands couldn't get it done in time before the winter and a baby arrived so it was pushed to the wayside. 

Unfortunately, the time has now come that my son is showing an interest in the outdoors and worse, becoming mobile! Keen to give him some of that natural vitamin D and nurture his interests, my husband, mum and I have been out in the garden stripping away a garden so mature we didn't realise a lot of it was actually dead.  You might ask how it wasn't possible for us to see that, my answer to you would be that it is a very very mature garden (so foliage on top of foliage which masks everything) and ivy.  So much ivy, everywhere.

Anyway, I think we're about a quarter of the way through at the moment, we have gone through countless recycling bags and we're still nowhere near finished! We still have to get rid of three large dead trees and one very alive house height palm tree (don't ask) which we will have to employ a professional to deal with, then I will have to remove a layer of soil and put top soil back so I can plant cuttings of our fuchsia and camelia, revive our lawn and that's just the green part! The shed needs to be completely replaced and don't get me started on the concrete and paving in the garden.  This is a conversation I never thought I would have to have, I have used terms like "cuttings" like I know what I'm talking about, but I have had to learn the hard way and one day I know my garden will look just the way it does in my head at the moment.  In the meantime, I will just have to make sure it's safe for my son and hopefully in a year he can have his first barbeque in our garden!