My Life is Like an Episode of Ground Force

Well, it would be if Charlie Dimmock, Tommy Walsh and the kindly Alan Titchmarsh contrived to turn up and work their green-fingered magic while I disappeared on a mini-break.

Actually, it's more like The Good Life Chez Calico these days. We're taking part in the Bosch Garden Makeover Competition.

This is our garden before we started work on our horticultural transformation:

We moved here in July and found mainly weeds, bamboo and ivy. Loads of ivy.

We're slowly getting rid of it, green bin load by green bin load:

We also have a hedge that may feature in the 2011 Guinness Books of World Records for being the biggest hedge in the world. Thanks to Bosch we now have the power to tame it as they were kind enough to send us some cordless hedgecutters. I have been reliably informed by my husband that they work brilliantly and he is over the moon with how easy they are to use. No excuse now, dear. I'm also pleased that they're cordless, for safety reasons.

Our garden isn't all bad though. Our lawn only has three types of weed in it. It could be a lot worse, according to the lovely people from Greenthumb.co.uk.They did an assessment of our lawn and provided us with their autumn weed-killer and grass fertiliser treatment. I'll let you know how well that has worked in my final post where I reveal the results of our makeover. These people know their stuff. If you want a beautiful lawn, give them a call.

We're not avid gardeners, but we love being outside and there's always something for the boys to look at or play with. Our plan is to turn the big weed patch into a vegetable patch so that we can grow our own fruit and veggies. We have cleared all of the weeds and bamboo and we're now getting the soil ready for planting.

We've also been busy caring for our winter pansy seedlings:

As the final part of the Bosch Makeover we are being given some plants by Best4plants.co.uk. It has taken us ages to decide what to choose as they have a massive range. Also, the majority of the plants that were on the estate agent's details seem to have moved along with the vendor. The only thing we don't need is winter pansies.

I'll let you know how we get on!

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