Making Cat's Garden in The View from the Terrace

It was my mother’s birthday yesterday. She would have been 108 which is a scary thought! We had a lovely day helping Cat to make a little garden in the space behind her flat. Cat lives above a pharmacy and her access is at the back through a yard. The people who own the pharmacy let the flat and, although they need access through the yard, they don’t really use it and said Cat and David could do what they liked with it.

Hubby came down for the day to help and first we went in the car to a local D I Y where they have a garden section to buy plants. Hubby had brought some marigolds that I had grown from seed and were left over from our garden. Cat likes cottage garden type plants. She chose some white shasta daisies and some orange tall delicate flowers, two climbing plants which will grow up the garage in the corner and some grasses.

We started by clearing away a lot of old shop fittings which were scattered everywhere. We stacked them tidily under the steps and then set about weeding. There were weeds everywhere growing between the concrete slabs. There were already two flower beds along one side and in front of a storage shed. After getting out all of the weeds, Hubby dug over the beds and dug in some garden compost from our heap at home. There was a clump of tall plants at the one end which I had thought were weeds but on looking closer realised were Michaelmas daisies which is appropriate as they were one of Mum’s favourite flowers. There were far too many, some had spead to between cracks in the entrance to the shed. Hubby managed to dig those up with some roots on them and he took them home for our garden.

Cat planted the climbers in the corner where they can grow up the shed wall. Then she arranged the other plants and planted them. They still had a little Christmas tree which they wanted to save for next year and we found a big plant pot lying in the yard which no one seemed to want so she put it in that and it can sit on the wall by the path.

It all looks lovely, a complete transformation. I wish I had thought to take some before photos, but here are the after ones.