Oh summer you have finally arrived, yay!! That means walks in the park, picnics, beach trips, shorts sleeves, summer dresses and sandals, BBQ’s and playing in the garden, plus my favourite bit…its going to stay lighter for longer, so evenings spend eating and relaxing on our patio, yippee!
I would love to say the picture above was our amazing immaculate garden, alas ours is the one below. But we do have river running across the end of it and lots of trees and greenery like the one above. But nevertheless we love our garden and outdoor space and are always working to make it more useable for our young family, so this is what we have been up to and some simple summer gardening tips for all those non-green fingered parents out there!
If you haven’t seen our garden on previous posts or on the vlog, we have this crazy long rambling woodland pretty much, going over 5 different layers ending at the river, with a higher patio section off our house. It is a bit crazy for a couple who aren’t the least bit green fingered or have the time to be. So we pretty much just leave the woodland bit up to its own devises (I dumped 2 boxes of wild flower seeds down the banks this week in the vain hope some flowers will sprout…wishful thinking!), tidy up the section where our studio is by cutting the grass when it needs to be cut and having a few large planters, then most our energy is spent on the patio area which is the bit that gets used the most, and the section we love to sit on at this time of year.
I pretty much spent the whole day out there today with Elian. He has a little water and sand table and a mini deck chair and I have a table and chairs and a parasol (which Jon forgot to put up this morning for me!) to keep the sun off. So we have slowly been working on sprucing up the patio area ready for the summer and making the first 2 levels of the garden more accessible and usable so we can make the most of the garden now Elian is older, he enjoys playing out on the grass and running about after Opie.
Last year we put in some LED motion sensor lights for Opie going down the garden and this week we have put in some orb like solar lamps, next to the path down to our studio, which we got through one of Groupon’s fantastic lighting deals, so it makes walking down to them so much easier and safer, plus they look pretty when it starts to get darker. I’m fancying some outdoor fairy lights or festoon lights like these next just to make the patio area even more usable in the summer evenings.
I have also planted up all my pastel coloured pots which Jon attached to our fence for me. They have a mixture of wild flower seeds, strawberry plant seeds and some herbs for use in the kitchen, plus they smell lovely when they grow, so I can’t wait for them all to start sprouting over the next few weeks and months.
The next big purchase is a new BBQ. Jon wanted one all of last summer but we never got around to buying one, so I think it will be high on the list to get one this year and I’ve already found a few good BBQ deals on Groupon so think we may be looking there this week.
Ok so my garden isn’t that pretty, and probably won’t win any awards, but I love that we have this awesome outdoor space. Opie thinks its the best thing ever as he gets to romp around it and explore it all the time, and I’m sure Elian loves it too! At the moment he has his little sand table but once it gets really hot we have a big pool that goes on the patio too, and this dude loves water! Plus when he is older it’ll be like exploring in the woods and I’m sure that will be perfect for him. You can hear the river running across the end and its bursting with wildlife at this time of year, which is amazing. Jon managed to capture a fox mama and her 5 cubs in the garden last year, can’t ask for more than that!
*This is a collaborative post*