Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

25th July 2025

Another hard day on my knees and back! Today resulted in another six stones laid, bring the edging up to the top entrance to the wood. These are the last stones in the long straight line up the edge of the wood. The next one is the entrance stone, which begins to turn around the edge of the wood. I think there's just twelve stones left to lay now.

The very last stone in the long row is sitting on the remains of the brick blast wall from the air raid shelter. The way they all step up the slope, resulted in the top of the bricks being the perfect height for the last stone. Just as well as I didn't want to have to cut and grind the bricks out.

While digging further down the row, I uncovered this metal bracket with a hook attached. Since it was amongst other air raid shelter rubble, I figured it could be connected. I posted a few pictures on a WW2 Airfield Facebook group and someone confirmed it was for hanging camouflage nets over the shelters.

I've got other stuff to do tomorrow afternoon, but in the morning, I want to get the one entrance stone laid. This will then be set for Sunday to mark out and dig the foundations for the stones that curve around the top of the wood.

 

That looks quite an undertaking @ArmyAirForce, I'm very impressed with your straight line!

We've been battling to dig out in quite a confined space the stump of a big bush. Got down quite deep and it's still absolutely solid and won't budge. Think we'll leave it to the builders next week!

 

I've seen youtube videos of people using Jetwashers to blast out the soil around tree roots to pull trees out of the ground. It that an option?

 

26th July 2025

We'd been invited to a friend's barbeque on Saturday afternoon, so the only thing planned for the day was to get the edging stone in at the top entrance to the wood.

27th July 2025

The following day, Lynne and I dug the foundations for the rest of the edging, up to the tree at the top of the wood. It was quick to start with, as we were just cutting through the lawn. As the foundation curved back towards the wood, we encountered dozens of slates buried amongst the grass, making the digging and sorting very slow.

At the end of the day, wandering around watering, I discovered the rabbits had been digging holes at the bottom of the wood and eating the Achillea near the middle entrance.

 

28th July 2025

On Monday, I got the next six stones fitted. There were three stepped up from the entrance stone, then two level for the future planter, then the first of the next three straight stones. A wooden template was made to match the angle on either side of the planter area.



Lynne had been out all day, but mid evening, we both went out again and cut the other two Yew trees to their new height. They still need the new growth trimmed off their width, but the garden bins are full. They will now be allowed to grow by another eight to ten inches, which can then be trimmed to round off the tops. They were always a handful to trim on the uneven ground, especially at their original 13+ feet height when we first moved in.

I've still been checking the trailcam every few days. June and July have been much quieter than April and May, with some nights having no activity. While more quiet, things are still going on in there. Perhaps once a week we catch the hedgehog on the camera. We still get occasional cats. This is the fourth cat we've seen, younger and smaller than the other black and white cat we've seen. The rabbits have been running around like they are on drugs and have been caught red handed eating the plants, while the magpies and pigeons are frequent dawn visitors.

 

29th July 2025

Today was the big push to get the last of the stones concreted in. Clearing the earth for one footing revealed a metal drain cover. Eek!! I popped next door to confirm where their drains ran, as I was sure it was up their drive before connecting to our drains near the house. That was correct and we presumed it was an old unused drain from the school or early house use in the 1970s when it was a garden centre/nursery. It wasn't on the house plans and the neighbours didn't even know it was there since they moved here in 2003, so I just buried it again. If it ever does need accessing, it's just one edging stone that would need excavating.

By early afternoon, I was mixing concrete again and was all done and tidied up by 3pm. While all the stones are in now, there's still a way to go to finish this project.



Standing back, it was great to see all the stones in place. Lynne cleaned out the earth from the joints on all the stones, except the ones with the wet concrete. This will allow me to silicone the joints tomorrow to stop grass from growing between the gaps. When that's done, we can start packing in topsoil back along the front of the stones.

Behind them, there's still some weeds and grass that needs digging out before backfilling the space with a sand/cement mix to minimise weeds establishing themselves there. When that's done, it can be covered over with fresh slates. We couldn't get through to the supplier today, but need to order three bulk bags of topsoil and one of slates. Much of the topsoil is to fill hollows in the lower lawn, in front of the top woodland entrance and by the driveway Laurel, near the shed.



The last spare edging stone was placed up the back left edge of the railway embankment to give a firm access passed the Hebe. Next to the Hebe, the Fuchsia was growing wildly out of control again, so was given a harsh haircut. It has grown around three and a half feet since April and isn't working in this location. The plan is to dig it out in the Autumn and move it to the right side of the railway, behind the stepping stone. This will fill an open area that currently looks onto the neighbour's garden. It can be left to grow taller here, requiring less constant pruning.

 

Well done both of you - that is certainly some project!

That was an interesting idea about using a jetwasher so thanks for that but just imagine the mess! The builder says he'll deal with it as he also wants to do something about the soakaway drainage in that area.

Might it be a good idea to label on the inside of the stone over the drain cover in case you need to identify which one sometime in the future? I've done a similar thing with buried cable in the garden for the benefit of future house owners.

 

30th July 2025

I've had an easier day today as my knees, arms and back ache! I still ended up crawling around on the ground, cleaning the remaining gaps between the edging stones and then adding a bead of silicone up each joint. Now my hand hurts from the silicone gun! This will keep the grass from growing through the joints. It's odd how the silicone acts like a lens, making the gap look far wider than it actually is. There were very few places where the silicone squeezed out of the back of the joint.

After a while to let it dry, I spread the existing soil out along the front of the stones. I still need to fill some areas more and we've ordered the top soil and slates this morning. They should be delivered on Monday.

I moved the middle entrance stepping stone to the left and forwards a bit, but it still may be moved a little further forwards once the slates are back-filled. I also added a couple of temporary hedgehog ramps. I'd read that they can climb walls, but with the earth and slates dipping down to the bottom of the edging, the ramps will help them get over until the area is back-filled.



Despite the sun only making occasional appearances, it was a hot day, so I didn't fancy doing any digging. Instead I mixed up some PVA glue and wood dust, to fill some gaps that had opened up in the railway gate where I'd spliced in repairs. Once fully hard, it can be given a sand and repaint.

While topping up the woodland pond, I noticed the large Dryopteris that was moved recently, has plenty of large leaves now. ( Edit ) The flowers belong to an Achillea growing below.

 

4th/5th August 2025

Late on the 4th, a truck delivered three bulk bags of top soil and one of slate. It was too late in the afternoon to start any work.

The following day, with Lynne at work, I recruited my daughter to help ( payment for a ride to the beach with her friends the following day ). We filled the wheelbarrow with the first load and I wheeled it to the back garden. Starting at the top of the wood, we began to fill along the new lawn edging.

When we reached the area by the top entrance, the ground was much lower than the surrounding area. The entrance had a big dip that needed filling. This is where my daughter is tamping down the soil. We built it up in layers, tamping down each layer to minimise settling.



Four and a half hours later, one bulk bag had been emptied and the woodland edging had been filled. There were several areas along the edge with hollows that were filled. The filled area by the entrance was around eight to ten feet wide to blend it into the rest of the lawn. Slightly further down the garden, towards the trampoline, was another area around two inches lower than the rest of the lawn. That took quite a lot of soil to fill.



There was a little left in the topsoil bag that we'd had for filling in the top lawn edging, so I decided to tip that out too. This was going into the drop next to the driveway laurel hedge. It's difficult to show it in a photo, so the graphic on the next picture tries to give an impression of the steep drop from the hedge, down to the main part of the lawn. This area was always a pain to mow, with the mower crabbing sideways along the bank, just to go straight.

So the plan for the next bulk bag, was to fill in this steep drop and smooth it out, blending it into the lawn in a more gentle slope, that would be easier to mow. So the remains of the top lawn soil, was dumped in this area, with work continuing the next day.

We were both hot and tired by this time, so called it a day, rather than start barrowing a new bag to the back garden.

 

6th August 2025

Nine barrow loads of topsoil were tipped out, raked and tamped down by the hedge. Working on my own on Wednesday, it took longer, plus I was still aching from the work the day before. It looked good, but still wasn't quite right. I was done for after the nine barrows and the day got quite hot, so I gave up for the day.



7th August 2025

Today, I continued with the spreading, adding more to the laurel area, spreading it more towards the woodland entrance, to fill another hollow. This also blended the slope better, which can be seen in the second picture.

The first picture also shows another hollow in front of the observatory, which was filled to some degree. It may need more top soil, but by now, I'd broken into the third bulk bag. I want to seed the areas and then cover the seed with more top soil, so I don't want to use it all up filling holes until the main seed areas are covered. After that, if there's top soil left, I'll build up the observatory hollow a bit more.

 

10th & 11th August 2025

While I had been spreading soil and grass seed out around the lawn, Lynne had been digging out grass and weeds from the slate area inside the new woodland edging. I wanted this cleared of unwanted green stuff in preparation for finishing the edging. She did from the top of the wood, down to the top entrance, which was the worst area. I finished the rest yesterday, down to the bottom of the wood.

12th August 2025

Since seeding the new lawn areas on the 9th and 10th, I've been keeping the area damp with the hose, two to three times a day to get it to germinate in this hot dry weather. Yesterday evening, it was still damp enough from the mid day watering, so I didn't bother. Overnight, the Pacific Ocean descended on Durham, hammering down for several hours. I hoped it hadn't washed all my soil and seed away! The soil was mostly still in place this morning, though covered in ripples like a sand dune.



Today was almost the final job of the lawn edging. In addition to digging out grass and weeds, we were clearing the earth from immediately behind the stones for a weed-unfriendly area. Yesterday evening, I sprayed weed killer all along the back of the edging stones with a mix of path clear and white vinegar. It was down for about four hours before the rain came, so hopefully it finished off anything not dug out before being washed away.

This morning, out came the cement mixer again. I began mixing up batches of mortar to go behind the stones. The mortar formed the weed-unfriendly zone of around six to eight inches wide by a couple of inches deep. Once fully cured, the remaining earth and mortar barrier will be covered up by the new slates that we had delivered. The slates do a pretty good job of stopping weeds and the mortar should limit what can grow immediately behind the stones. Anything that does, can be plucked and weed killered without interfering with the other plants further back.

It was just unfortunate that the mortar mixing was done on a day of 26 to 28 degrees and I was melting. We just need to wash the new slates of the mineral rich slate dust before spreading them around the wood. That will bring the edging project to conclusion. The new flower bed at the front of the wood will probably be next, allowing us to finish off the bulk bag of soil still at the front of the house.

 

Dryopteris don't have flowers, they're ferns.
It looks like you have an umbel (carrot family) of some sort growing up through it - the fine feathery leaves belong to that as well.

 

I realised after I posted, that it's one of the Achilleas growing up from under it.

 

It doesn't really look much like Achillea......more like Ammi.

 

What's in the Wood in July?