As Summer 2022 drew to a close and the almost instant no-dig border had provided extra colour I had no hesitation in deciding to extend it. It hadn't all been plain sailing. Due to the slight slope some of the soil and compost slid and wash out onto the paved drive, and the grass round the edges was difficult to cut and manage. But surely they were problems I could overcome. So what next?

Most of my focus when I started reviving my garden was on restoring the vegetable plot and bringing the greenhouse back into service but the desire to add a splash of spring colour to my flower border nagged at the back of my head and I thought a few patches of tulips and and asortment of alium bulbs would do the trick, or at least get me started.  Unfortunatley the border was so heavily mulched with gravel and so overgrown with later summer perenials that it had was not the quick fix I had hoped for and in the first year most of the bulbs ended up in posts. 

Most of my vegetable beds were made using the no-dig technique before I'd even heard about it, a surprise benefit of my lazy shortcuts. But now I wanted to reduce the amount of grass and add more colour to the front of my house, so in spring 2022 I mowed the grass, laid out a patch of cardboard,

After Andy died on 21st May 2004, we decided that we needed to create some kind of memorial for him. We weren't sure what to do exactly but we were considering planting trees or plants somewhere in the fields or garden. We also considered some kind of monument, but were really unsure about what we were actually capable of doing. We also need somewhere to place his ashes.

 Towards the end of 2004, we were doing some garden tidying near the old gravel garden, which had become completely overgrown. After a couple of days hacking through the undergrowth, we reckoned that with a serious effort we could turn it into some kind of memorial garden.