Van garden pictures

 Back home now, having spent the morning tidying up and cleaning the van, changing the beds, packing and leaving the van all fresh and ready for the next time.  Husband tidied up outside and mowed around the van - each van owner is expected to keep the grass immediately surrounding their own van mowed, unless you make a separate arrangement with the site owner.  He also watered all the pots and plants in the ground.  It's such a friendly little community there, we all water each other's plants when our neighbours aren't at their vans, how nice is that.  

So, the garden pictures.....firstly, here's the monster hedge in various stages of being chopped down:-

As it was when we first saw it

The plastic ivy trellis, and the raised bed husband built

And finished, with the lovely stone pots we found buried beneath the monster hedge.  The large middle one contains a hebe, with French lavenders either side, and ferns on the outside edges.

And here's the garden as it was on the 2 June, when we first bought the van:-

Knee high weeds and tons of pots full of dead plants.

And now, neat and tidy with artificial turf and pots of roses, flowering shrubs and ornamental grasses:-

Sorry, the sun had gone in when I took the photos this morning.  The freshly dug border at the front fence edge is full of Spring bulbs I planted yesterday, there are about 10 or so pots also full of bulbs at the far end of the garden.  The front corner has a miniature climbing rose planted there, to be trained along the fence.  There's a purple clematis planted in the rear corner, to cover the upright piece of trellis.

When we go back the next time, I'm going to rub down and repaint the wood rail along the top of the metal fence, and husband will be tackling this:-

The messy bank area behind the caravan.  There's a paved patio (just visible on the left of the photo, it was completely covered with rubbish and overgrown shrubs when we first bought the van, we didn't even realise the slabs were there!  Once the area is cleared of rubbish and the bank soil dug over, we'll plant it up with shade loving plants - it's very dry there and is dappled shade because of the trees.  Husband will have a tool store (there's one there already, it's hidden at the moment) on the slabs, he'll fence off the far side so next door's 2 little yappy dogs can't keep coming round, and I might have a little rotary washing line there.

As the summer is nearly over, we decided in the end not to take over our nice rattan table and chairs set from home.....we'll take them next year, and swap them over with the wooden ones.

Yesterday we took Betty for a walk round Cheddar Reservoir, which is 10 minutes drive away from the Park.  It wasn't busy at all, hardly anyone there - there were far more ducks and wildfowl than humans!  Along with numerous ducks, Canada geese and some grebes, we saw several egrets, and a white heron - never seen a white one before, only the normal grey heron.  Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of it, as it was too far away for my phone cam to pick it up.  I did get one of an egret though:-

You can just about see it in the middle of the photo!  And here's a wider view of the Reservoir:-