Down with gravel beds

When we moved into our current home in October 2006, there was almost no garden. Lots and lots of lawn, but nearly nil garden. There were four strips whichhad once been garden. Across the back of the garage was all gravelled in to prevent weeds growing or the need to mow lawn. Our winter wood supply is now stacked on top of that. Down one side of the house, the side leading to the back door and thus towards the kitchen, was similarly gravelled. My first gardening project here was that strip, which I cleared of stones on my hands and knees while pregnant. As a method to get my baby daughter to move into optimal foetal position, it was much better than scrubbing floors. That strip has now fed us with swiss chard, broccolli, garlic and now is home to parsley, chives, winter hardy lettuces, freesias and feverfew. It will eventually be all perennial herbs.

This leaves the two strips in front of the house, on either side of the front door. The one in front of our bedroom is the only one which had soil. Not much in the way of plants though. One dahlia and some shrubby thing which I removed. It now has comfrey, the dahlia and some parsley. And the odd wayward bulb, although there isn't really enough sun there for spring bulbs to do well. The last strip is in front of the lounge. It has three roses which are durable, pretty and unruly. This strip is very narrow, probably only coming out from the wall about 20cm. It had agapanthus which I pulled out - they are a noxious plant here on the coast. There are some very beautiful creamy freesias there also. Around all this is stones, several layers thick. I removed one lot of stones last year when I removed the agapanthus and yesterday I started to remove the stones on the far side of the roses. Once I've got the bulk of them removed, then I'll dump some of the horse poo I got the other day on there and top with peas straw. It's a crude form of building up a garden, but better than leaving it full of stones. I'll have to leave it at least six months to rot down, but that's not a problem. Plenty of other garden projects to keep me occupied.