Being a child of the 70s, a bit brassic, inherently mean and environmentally conscious, we tried to reuse as much ‘hard landscaping’, as I believe the lingo goes, as possible from the garden in its reincarnation. What we could not use was the four skips’ worth of the finest grade diamond-hard concrete beneath every paving slab/log-roll post. The Under Gardener churlishly rejected the Head Gardener’s kind offer of hiring a pneumatic drill, apparently not regretting his decision. Fortunately, his halo has yet to slip and strangle him! We, our son and the Under Gardener, precariously transported next door’s nice small shed into our garden courtesy of a winter storm demolishing the adjoining fence. For the princely sum of twenty quid and twenty quid’s worth of fence paint, it was as good as new. 

Obviously, as the project was only going to take a couple of weekends, I started buying plants – all the plants I had ever wanted! Plant filled pots appeared and I was kept busy trying to keep them alive as the Under Gardener strung out his weekend project through the summer. The Under-Gardener assures me he enjoys playing solitaire with plant pots, or at least, that’s what I heard. Five years later, I still have raspberry canes appearing in entirely the wrong place from where I heeled them in, they now poke their spikey form up through the decking like triffids, soon they will be in the house!

The Under Gardener worked out all the angles for the High Chaparral style arch and trellis which hid the shed and Geoff Hamilton beehive compost bin (recycled from fence panels). The circular paving I wanted was a different size to the one the paving we had, but never fear, we found a load of bricks. School-boy geometry failed to supply the necessary so, reluctantly admitting defeat, Google supplied the angles for the circular paving. We were a couple of slabs short and the paving is discontinued. However, I found the Head Office – only in East Farleigh – off we went to have a chat. They found a couple of slabs round the back resting on a pallet which they gave to us.

It transpired that our neighbours hated the Leylandii so they were replaced with a nice smart fence and the garden grew by a couple of feet when we removed sheets and sheets of glass and assorted rubbish – result!

Next time the phoenix emerges, not from the ashes but from good Marden clay…