English Gardens

We have a nice little enclosed garden behind our house.  It's not very big, probably not more than 15 feet deep and wide (deep and wide, deep and wide, there's a fountain flowing deep and wide...).  However, no one who has lived here in the past five years has been interested in gardening.  Joanne and I were talking today about tackling it.  With pretty summer days, it's a nice private, sunny place to take a book and try to tune out the endless sirens and rude chatter of the street.  As it is right now, you need to fight for space among the thistles.

Here are some "Before" shots of the Jungle behind Number 8:

In a fit of energy, I started on pulling some things out tonight.  I really don't know what I'm doing, but I'm assuming pretty much everything is a weed.  The only thing I'm certain is not a weed is a plant that I planted on Monday!  After one hour, I have a few observations.  

1) I need Uncle Doug and Haven and Mom's combined landscaping advice to save our garden!  2) Gardening in England is not for the faint hearted.  3) Gardening in England is not for those afraid of snails.  We have snails EVERYWHERE in the garden.  They gross me out.  Literally, I jumped when I picked up my little trowel and a snail had crawled onto it.  I'm afraid my garden may revolt and I will be carried off in my sleep by hundreds of snails who are angry at me for disturbing their homes.  I hesitated to pull off my Wellies because I kept picturing icky snails trying to clime up my feet and legs to beg me to stop.  But I soldiered on despite my fears and made some progress.  It's not worthy of a picture yet, but there will be more to come after another few hours next week.