Our Little Garden

We are lucky to have an outdoor space and whilst it isn't ideal for a young family, we are making it our own.  It is on three levels and mostly paved or concrete but there is a border that was full of overgrown weeds when we moved in.   This summer is the first that both boys will be walking and playing and we are looking forward to spending as much as possible of it outdoors.

With a little a lot of help from my lovely Dad, we cleared all the weeds leaving two trees and lots of soil and the lovely folks over at Plant Me Now offered us something to brighten it up as part of their project to #GetKidsGardening.  I sat down with the boys to take a look at their summer bedding collection and allowed Dylan full control of plant ordering.  He went for a theme of blue, white and yellow and seemed very insistent that all the flowers should be in these colours!

I have no admit to having never really done any gardening before, but I managed (with a little help), to plant our collection of flowers in the garden.  The boys loved getting involved, and whilst Archie mostly wanted to pull the plants back out of the ground, Dylan loved pulling them out of the plant pots and helping dig the holes.  We had treated him to a new watering can so he was on hand to make sure all the plants were well fed.

Being sent through the post meant that the plants were not looking their best when they found a home in our garden.  some stood tall, but others looked like they would need time to adjust.

We learnt that the best time to water them was the evening as the sun would just evaporate the water, and  our evening routine now sees us gather our watering cans after dinner to give the plants their supper too.  

To make the garden a bit more exciting, we have added in a flower windmill, some solar powered lights and some solar powered lanterns that we can hang on the washing line when we are having our barbeques.

Unfortunately, we didn't account for the slugs and after day 3 some of our poor plants looked a bit bare.  There seems to be one specific type that they find very tasty! We have put down some slug pellets now, but it is too late for the casualties.  Lucky we still have plenty of colour and variety and the flowers are starting to perk up.

Thinking ahead to winter, there is a great range of winter bedding plants, and I may let Dylan choose a few of those nearer the time. (I think these winter pansies would be a hit!)

Disclaimer:  This post is in conjunction with Plant Me Now.  

All thoughts, opinions and photographs are completely my own.