Long long time ago in a distant galaxy our garden looked liked this.

 

I knew i wanted to breed birds again and had to find some free space to build an aviary. The retaining walls had clearly seen better days and where all falling forward. Whoever had built them initially hadn't set the posts correctly or placed adequate drainage material behind the walls. The garden is mostly clay and this lead to water build-up forcing more pressure on the walls pushing them forward. Whatever space i was planning to create the first thing that had to be done was replace the retaining walls and terrace the garden.

 

The grand plan was to have three levels. The bottom level just a pathway, level two would be a vegetable garden and level three would be the aviaries with a stunning view over Silverstream

 

Anyway i started by clearing the garden closely followed by building the middle retaining wall (see right)

 

This was the one in most need of repair and i figured if i worked from the top down any earth that was removed could be thrown down to the second level for the vegetable garden.

 

 

 

 

 

Well that was the plan anyway nobody told me that when i started drilling post holes in clay and how much of a challenge that would turn out to be.

 

 

 

Eventually we completed the middle retaining wall and please with our efforts we sat back and admired it for a few months while the winter weather drew in.

Spring and summer came along and once again we were energised into continuing this so called “weekends worth of work”

 

 

 

Removing around 2 ton of clay from behind the lower retaining wall and putting it anywhere allowed us to create a trench behind the old wall so when we removed it we had room it nail the 200X50 retaining planks behind the posts.

 

This was the old retaining wall andas you can see it was badly in need of replacement.(right)

 

After much pondering and scratching my head i finally got to work and removed the old wall (below)

 

Clearing the old wall and creating a trench behind or the new drainage material.

 

By the way if this looks like your kind of fun please feel free to pop round and help (He says holding his breathe)

 

Anyway by now it looking like a bomb site and with broken friends refusing to come back and help it was up to me no matter how many BBQs i offered to cook..

 

We continued to plod on and managed to finish the lower wall

 

Were are the aviaries i here you shout well i am getting there and hopefully the next update will see some stairs and maybe even a flight or too.

 

Stay tuned for Confessions part 2