The English Garden of My Dreams – Complete with Stone Walkways and Wood Garden Beds…
It’s coming to life, you guys! I’ve been working like a dog on my English Garden and I’m so excited to share the progress with you. Maybe it will inspire you to build your own English Garden.
Working in the garden has been a great way to keep my mind of the recent loss of my Gram. I find that if I work hard enough, I tire myself out to the point of no thought…and right now I just can’t sit still and think for very long…it makes me too sad. But, I think she’d proud of the work I’ve done in the garden.
It’s always been a longstanding joke that I kill every plant that comes in sight. So, I’m sure she’d laugh if she knew how big my plans are for this garden.
But, I’m going to get it done…eventually. It’s a whole lotta work, but it’ll be so worth it in the end.
So far, the sod has been torn out.
The basic outline has been painted onto the dirt.
I edged the space between the garden and the grass with stones.
I’ve built 4 out of 4 stone walkways (they aren’t completely finished).
The Husband built me 4 gorgeous live-edge wood garden beds.
I built a flower box and a trellis for the corner of the driveway.
We’ve done all of this FOR FREE!
so far…
The stones were here when we bought the house. Remember that garden bed I told you about a couple of weeks ago? The one that needed to be torn out due to lack of drainage? I took all the stones from there to build my walkways. But, we will need to buy sand to fill them in.
One of our awesome neighbors is a logger/sawyer and happens to have a HUGE pile of scrap wood that he has no use for, but, lucky for him, I have a use for it!
So, he was kind enough to give us “as much as want” for free! Wasn’t that so nice? He might regret that when he sees that I have an addiction to wood and a random need to build things without plans.
Anyway, The Husband and I went up on Sunday and got a whole bunch of it for building the garden boxes. But, we will need to buy some good quality soil to add into the dirt we used to fill the bottom of the garden beds.
I built the flower box and trellis for the driveway out of pallet wood and a random piece of molding that we had laying around. It came out pretty good, if you ask me. The husband thinks it’s “too rustic”. But, what does he know about rustic, anyway?
Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try, I won’t be able to build the entire garden for free.
Note to Self: Start a Compost Pile for Future FREE Garden Soil.
Have a Spectacular Day!
~Vanessa

Vanessa Hamlin is the owner and founder of Food Life Design and VLHamlinDesign. With her passion for frugal living and homesteading, Vanessa loves to write about easy recipes, making money, gardening, home remedies and everything else that a good life entails! When she’s not writing for Food Life Design or creating products for VLHamlinDesign, you’ll find Vanessa reading, drawing, gardening, cooking or spending time with her family.
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