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Main garden
I moved into my current house in December 2007. I didn't take any pictures of the garden when we moved in so I will have to describe what we arrived to. Bear in mind this is a council house (Social housing) and therefore you have to sort out all the mess yourself apart from things like electrics, plumbing etc.
I spent most of 2008 redecorating inside the house using the warmer days to work on the garden. Due to circumstances which meant we had to move into social housing the spend was minimal and the interior including laminating the floor throughout, painting etc was £600 which meant a lot of 'graded' flooring and bargains from elsewhere.
The garden is 24m x 7m surrounded on all sides by a 6ft wooden fence. when we moved in it was wasteland with broken glass and rubbish everywhere plus a well used bonfire area in the centre. To see the rubbish and the bonfire area you had to walk through it because the grass had been left alone and was head high from fence to fence apart from the areas where rubbish and bonfire remains were slowing down growth.
I immediately started picturing a colourful paradise with butterflies and birds loving it complete with a vegetable garden at the end. I knew this was a project I would enjoy doing.
The timescale for completion here is obviously going to be long term. I anticipate the finished look won't be achieved until we have lived here for 4 years or so!!! It also has to be within a limited budget so unless there are superb deal no plants will be bought. Everything wil be grown from seed.
In February
2008 I started by using a strimmer borrowed from a family member to get all the grass down to 6" tall or so. This allowed me to get in there and remove the rubbish. There were window frames, old electric appliances and much much more to remove. It took 4 trips to the local tip to get rid of and that was only the larger visible items.
the next step was to set my lawn mower to the highest setting it would go to and mow the whole area. I am using the end section of the garden, where I plan to eventually build a nature garden, as a rubbish tip/compost heap for this first year or 2 while the main garden section is sorted out.
By the end of March 2008 the garden area was looking like a lawn of sorts although in really bad shape and a bare patch in the centre where the bonfires had been.