Good Friday Gardening

So this is how I left the garden on Wednesday... see those big spiky plants just behind the washing line whirligig?  Those are Phormium Tenax apparently, and I hate them.  I just don't understand spiky plants.  They're vicious! 

We sawed them off low down first of all and then the two of us got stuck in to digging the root mass out.  It was HUGE and took us ages.  Here it is once we'd cut it in half (couldn't lift it whole):

Removing roots:

Now we just have to get rid of them...

Lovely big space, I plan to plant my new rose here once it arrives - David Austin Charlotte - a present from my sister for my birthday: http://www.davidaustinroses.com/english/showrose.asp?showr=3111

Unfortunately something is up with our pear tree.  From googling it looks like it is Pear Blister Mite - http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=661 - and apparently just looks ugly but doesn't affect the plant's ability to make fruit.

View from the back of the garden:

First of the French Beans coming through:

PSB doing OK:

View from master bedroom:

View from bedroom 4:

Wednesday 16 April - Heating!

Whilst I was toiling in the garden, Graham was commissioning the boiler! Actually he came outside at one point to find me lazing on the bench in the sunshine, so I can't really claim to have been toiling non-stop...

He's disconnected the gas fire and switched the gas over to fuel the boiler.  I can't actually explain how exciting it is to have radiators giving off heat!

There are two more rads to hang once the walls they're on have been patched (kitchen and dining room, opposite sides of the same wall).  The dining room wall has a hole from a heating vent and the kitchen wall has LOADS of holes from the hot air system.

The only other thing is that it looks like the wiring instructions didn't include the instruction to connect the hot water cylinder thermostat to the boiler - so the boiler will heat the water up...and up... and up... and won't click off.  So we're back on immersion heated water until Friday when the electrician comes back.

I don't have many photos to show you since you've already seen the radiators etc, but there's lots more pipes in the airing cupboard since I last posted, so here's how it looked last Tuesday (8 April):

And today:

Control panel (because the boiler is in the loft, we needed a remote programmer):

Radio thermostat - we need to have a think about where to put it, it will possibly go upstairs since upstairs seems warmer than downstairs at the moment, but then again we're missing two downstairs rads so that might change.  We can walk around with it for now.  In time we might get a Nest thermostat or similar, which can be controlled by smartphone app and "learns" how to best heat your house: https://nest.com/uk/

Wednesday 16 April - Garden

I have a couple of days off work and it's sunny - so obviously I spent the entire day in the garden :)

I bought loads of new plants with my birthday money and did some clearance and stuff...  here are pics:

Beautiful planter from my parents with rocket, lettuce seeds and parsley:

Planter and lavender:

Herb pots on the ugly manhole cover:

Herbs: chives, rosemary, sage, thyme, more sage, and lavender.

Garlic from Mum:

Lupin:

Agapanthus:

Scabious (horrible name for a lovely plant):

Penstemon:

One of four potato planters (my camera couldn't quite cope with the dark/bright aspects here so apologies for blurry photo):

I seem to spread out quite a bit when gardening...!

Veg beds:

It was 35 degrees in the sun today - bliss!

Hot water cylinder

Graham managed to remove the old hot water cylinder and fit the new one in one day.  Hurrah!  I wasn't looking forward to not having heating OR hot water, so this was a relief.

Pics:

Before:

Delivery:

Ian gets roped in :)

I watch :)

After:

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice the new one is taller than the old one and that means no shelf for bedlinen and towels etc.  I don't think I'm overly fussed about this, but it might be possible to build some shelving around the front and left of the cylinder.  Not sure.

Will report back after tomorrow's shower but the pressure seems brilliant!  Exciting!

God bless my in-laws... and my husband!

Today I went to work.  Whilst I was at work, my in-laws and husband cleared plants, lopped hedges, pruned honeysuckle, built a raised bed, barrowed 2.5ish tonnes of soil, and mowed the lawn.  Amazing.

Just a reminder of how it was looking...  a large amount of space cleared...

...one bed built but not positioned...

...and 3 tonnes of soil delivered.

So that was where everything was when I left the house this morning.

I got the following photos around 2pm by email, thank you Jane!  It was looking very exciting!

I got home to this beautiful sight!

The boys seemed incapable of stopping.  This was about 6pm but they just wouldn't give up for the night!

I sat on the bench and luxuriated in their work and the beautiful flowers appearing...

And then this little chap popped up to say hello!  Apparently he was around a lot today, but I've not seen him before.  He's very tame :) I guess he was hoping for worms, but the beautiful topsoil doesn't contain many!

I finally convinced them all to stop and we went out for dinner, but not before I took a team photo... THANK YOU, you wonderful people xxxxxxxx

The point of no return...

The old warm air central heating system is no more!

As a reminder, it was a beige floor-to-ceiling metal unit that filled a corner of the kitchen:

That corner now looks like this:

The ceiling:

The floor:

New piping under the bath

New boiler in the loft (er, and a defunct TV aerial.  We have three aerials...)

Cold water tank in the loft, soon to be gone:

Ducting in the loft:

And finally, Graham and Ben got our ancient gas fire working, it needed a new thermocouple apparently!  I don't like the fire, it's scary and it smells, but it's a nice bit of heat in a now-unheated house.  We have an oil-filled electric radiator in our bedroom and a fan heater which can go wherever, so we shouldn't be cold.

The next task is to remove the hot water tank and immersion heater and replace it.  This obviously means we will be without hot water.  Graham hopes to do it in one day which will be amazing if he manages it.  Ian can shower at work and I have discovered a building at my work that has a shower so if worst comes to worst....!

Oh and just as a PS, the topsoil for the veg beds was delivered today, here's two of three tonnes (the other one is in the garage):

Not sure that gives a full sense of size!