Building a garden arbor and trellis

The shed project has gone on hold for the time being awaiting another injection of funds. This will hopefully happen around September/ October which will be perfect weather to get into some serious construction. Not!

It seems that there is this cycle of money and time in our lives but they never appear to coincide. At one point you may have heaps of time but you don't have the funds, while at another point you have the money but just can't organise to have some spare time - or it's raining!

So the shed project is on hold. However, we have some wonderful friends who have just completed a renovation on their house and were left with a heap of timber which they wanted to get rid of. Enter stage left (Scavenger Stu) who for the price of removing it from their lawn ended up with all this new project resource. Alas, very little of it is useful for the shed but I have other ideas in mind.

The new project is to construct a couple of garden arbors. The first one, seen below, is to cover our garden bench. We plan to put some trellis on it and grow some sort of climber which we are undecided about at the moment. The obvious choice for our cottage style front garden is some Chinese Wisteria. However, I've also been toying with the idea of some Clematis. Any ideas?

Grapes isn't an option because we are soon to construct another arbor out the back which will house a variety of grapes (yet to be sourced also!).

Creating this arbor hasn't been a stress. The four supporting posts already had stirrups on the bottom which only required me to use a spade bit on the sleepers which were already then and then drop them into the holes. The rebates had already been cut out and the bolt holes had already been drilled. It's starting to sound like an IKEA project already.

I had to leave the roof beams due to time constraints but will hopefully get back to it this weekend. Then it's just a matter of attaching some wooden battens for the trellis, a coat of paint and voila it'll be ready for something to be planted over it.

Temporary Compost Bin

One of our weekend projects was to clean up some of the rubbish we have laying around our yard and to install a temporary compost bin. Voila! Here it is in all it's glory.






It's not complete yet as I need to hammer a couple of metal stakes through the inside to ensure it doesn't tip over. As you can see it's constructed purely of 3 wooden pallets which we have scored over the years from bringing some of our project resources onsite. The beauty of this contruction is that it took only 5 minutes to erect and will take even less to dismantle.

This compost bin is also completely portable. If we find that it becomes a nuisance where it's positioned now we can transfer it elsewhere in a matter of minutes.

The grand plan is to erect better built compost bins however the space required is still not available yet and won't be for a couple more months. But in the meantime I was tired of sending all my beautiful garden waste to the tip and finding that I was still needing to import mulch and soil improvers.

Building an outdoor bird aviary

The focal point of our new garden room is this bird aviary that we have been constructing from recycled materials and some local bush poles. As you can see it's not huge and won't accomodate a vast array of birds but there will be enough room to enjoy a few.

We're planning to host some finches and quails at the moment but later may decide to go a little more exotic and include lovebirds or canaries.

Building a bird avairy outdoors is not as onerous as one might assume and can be constructed from very minimal resources. The materials we are using for this design are; bush poles for the uprights, corrugated mini-orb sheeting to protect them, thatching for the roof and wiremesh to encase it all.

It certainly won't be a construction that Aviary Weekly (if there is such a thing) will display on the front cover but it will suffice for our purposes. The aim of building this bird aviary is to tie in with the garden room theme and also to add some interest as we, and our visitors, pause for a time.

Outdoor aviaries, like water features and fountains, can provide a great focus to relax and unwind. The beauty with an aviary is that unlike a water feature you can watch little creatures go about their business without too much fuss or anxiety and they sing while they do it. I'm looking forward to sitting in this 'room' and enjoying their activity.

BTW - we had grand visions of which birds we could stock in this aviary until we talked to our local pet store owner. We found out that there are many birds that can't dwell together in the same cage so if you are planning to build your own bird aviary, ask some questions and consider what birds will live together happily (without eating each other).

High hopes for new garden bed

Optimism has entered my garden once again. Even as we approach the end of a tired summer when my plants are showing signs of heat stress or their inability to cope with persistent diseases, there is a tinge of anticipation in the stratosphere above our home.


There is nothing more hopeful in our yards than creating a new garden bed. The aroma of expectation wafts through my creative senses imagining scenes that are still years away. Thoughts of new plants that I will be able to upload for Garden Blogger's Bloom Day traverse my mind. Oh... the accolades - I should begin writing my speech now.

But with this newfound optimism also comes the tyranny of labour. The joy I shall reap in 2-3 years time will only come about if I get my butt into gear and start preparing the soil. No longer will my wife put up with my incessant "One day..." - it's now action time.

So, why hasn't this bed been prepared until now? Unfortunately it's bordered by our new garden shed - which is finally finished BTW - and couldn't be planted out until the walls had been erected and painted. But now all of that is completed and the garden bed was just hoarding various species of weed - weeds that wouldn't dare inhabiting any other garden bed.

Also I had been waiting for my first compost heap to fully decompose and cool down so that I could start using it. And what a compost it was! Four wheelbarrow loads later and I had made way for the next one to be turned.

And 4 barrow loads was only just enough. This garden bed, with its very deficient sandy soil (using the word "soil" is a big stretch of the term), sucked it up in no time and was begging for more.

After watering the compost in it also became very apparent that the sand had become water-repellent. This is a huge problem if you're planning to introduce plants straight away. Fortunately I have some time on my hands as I'm hoping to plant in early spring - some 9 months away - so solving this dilemma isn't as urgent as one would expect.

While most gardeners would propose adding some wetting agents or water saving crystals, at 35 I'm a misnomer wanting to do it the "old way". That is, I'm keen to start a 'green manure' and give the soil a chance to repair itself - naturally.

As this process will take 3-4 months, I'll keep you updated with how the soil is improving and how the plant choices are progressing.

Converting unused space into a practical greenhouse

Ever since I began gardening I've had this nagging desire to have my own greenhouse. A place that was dedicated purely for propagating plants and storing them in some form of recognizable arrangement. Yet I've never had the chance, or the space, to construct one.


And, Voila! Here is the logical outcome.

This is the side of my shed. Not any side, mind you, but a North-facing side - very important for us southern hemispherean gardeners! It's main purpose is to keep the other 3 side walls erect (and gives somewhere for the roof to hang on to as well). Apart from that, it's just a thoroughfare for the wood pile at the rear.

Look closer and you'll begin to be inspired by the possibilities. Here is a wall pleading to be utilised and so I consented by erecting some framework for future shelving.

What about the cover, I hear you ask? Well, here is the genius... One of the problems with our climate is that in summer it gets far too hot for far too long. So I couldn't just construct a standard greenhouse or all the plants would sizzle in summer and die. Therefore I needed another option and it came quite suddenly and somewhat divinely - in other words I can't remember how I came up with it!

I plan to have two types of cover - clear plastic sheeting for the cooler months and UV-resistant shade cloth for the warmer ones. Both of them will be made as single, continuous sheets that can be taken off and put back on again.

Here's how they will be attached;

1. Steel REO bars - approximately 2m long - will be concreted 500mm into the ground opposite the shed wall and on the other side of the 2m wide path. They will be spaced out at 1m intervals requiring 6 for my 5m long shed.
2. Channels will be sown into both the clear sheeting and the shade cloth at similar intervals wide enough for 20mm PVC pipe to travel through - much like a tent would work.
3. Then brackets will be attached to the roofline at the same width intervals and will hold the PVC piping.
4. Once these things are in place it's simply a matter of pushing the PVC piping through the channels on the cover and placing one end through the roof brackets and the other over the vertical REO bar. This will create a half-dome effect.
5. As the seasons switch the covers can be interchanged to turn the greenhouse into a shadehouse and vice versa.

It's a very simple system but will provide me with the space to grow a quantity of plants both for use in the garden and also for experimentation. I'll keep you updated with progress photos.

Drip Feed Pot Plant

Are these the cutest pot plant containers, ever?

If you're someone who struggles to keep plants alive in their pots then utilizing the wonders of modern medicine may be a good option. Each plant is sustained by its own water and nutrient source that is very visible - as an intravenous feed. If the drip feed runs out, it's time to refill.

While it might be the cutest thing you've ever seen, at £159.50 from the Vitamin store, you're not likely to keep one for anything other than its novelty value.