A Small Garden Terrace – Part One: laying the foundations

“What are you doing there?” I asked Mr M as he leant, beer in hand on an old rickety fence panel at the end of our garden. It was one early summers evening way back in 2017 that he spent a good while simultaneously looking at his wrist watch and the setting sun. “I am thinking” he said slowly “this spot here would be an ideal place for a small garden terrace. Quite the spot infact, to enjoy a glass of something cold on a hot summers evening.” Some garden projects simply take time to come to fruition though and we are only just nearing the completion of this one some three years later. So today, I thought I might share with you our makeover of a once neglected corner in our pretty back yard to a small garden terrace on a budget of course, just over there to the left of this beautiful ancient copper beech…

The following year in early springtime on a gloriously sunny weekend, Mr M set to measuring out the appropriate size to accommodate a few chairs and perhaps a table we had yet to buy. I kept him fed and watered as he dug and weeded for what seemed like an eternity.

A weed suppressant we had left over from here was laid on top of a fine tilth of earth and a vast quantity of builders’ rubble topped the spot off.

This part of the garden has a distinct woodland feel and enjoys frothy ferns and bluebells each spring and we are lucky enough to have several other shady spots where established grasses and native primroses thrive. Only a few were lifted from each area and relocated to the small garden terrace borders along with a scattering of hyacinth bulbs saved from these projects. And a dear friend supplied a few clumps of what promised to be purple irises the following year, straight from her own much-admired garden.

And that was it for May 2018 as Mr M and I busied ourselves elsewhere in the home and here here and here in the garden. Fast forward to September and a small supply of concrete filled just enough of the small garden terrace for us to enjoy the last few sun filled evenings of the year. Shifting garden chairs from one end of the garden to the other however was far from ideal and our search for a more permanent solution continued in earnest.

And during Betwixtmas, Mr M took advantage of Master M’s Christmas return home from uni and the two of them finished pouring the concrete base.

It was to be some seventeen months later when a pandemic would force Mr M back to the home before we even had the time to think about furnishing our small garden terrace again.

And wouldn’t you know it; he likes shiny and new and she adores rusty and old. And neither one is particularly enamoured by the other one’s price tag. Join me next week to see if we struck up a compromise with a stylish and affordable solution for this grey and uninviting small garden terrace. Until then…x