A Mummy Oasis in the Garden

My boys love to play in the garden. I love them to play in the garden too! It gets the noise out of the house and it gives them a chance to burn off some energy.

I often forget that a few years ago the boys couldn’t play out there. It was quite overgrown and the roof on the ex greengrocer’s shop, known as “the garage” (although no car has ever been parked in it) was dangerous and falling in.

A few years further on and the garage roof has been taken down, opening up the space along the side of our house. The garden has been attacked and the triffids brought under control. Plants and paving slabs have been moved and it’s now starting to look like I want it too. It’s still a jungle but it’s under control! The boys bought themselves a swing/ slide/ tree house thing with birthday and Christmas money they had been saving up, and I got them a little trampoline last year after I had something published in a book and, being mostly over the pram addiction, wanted to to spend the money on something they would enjoy. The area where the garage was has hard standing, so the boys like to ride their bikes and scooters and trucks up and down it.

So it’s great! The boys have space to play, things to play on and there’s lots of green junglyness for me to enjoy. There was no adult designated area, but it didn’t occur to me that I needed one. That was until I found a blog post about making a mummy oasis in the garden here at Making Lemonade. So I set about making one in my garden!

It took only a few minutes and has cost me no money, except for the seeds which I had been planning to buy anyway. The chairs we had already. They were given to us about 10 years ago by somebody we knew who was moving to a flat with no garden. They’re a bit tatty but suprisingly comfortable! I moved them into a neglected corner of the garden where the raspberries grow. I found a trellis in the garden, but in the end I decided to nail the pots to the fence. We don’t have an Ikea near us and I’ve no idea where I would get such lovely pots and hooks to hang them up. The pots I used are plastic ones I found in the shed. I painted them with acrylic paint I already had (bought cheaply from somewhere in internetland!), the nails and compost I also had in the shed. I bought some seeds and most of them have come up, although some drowned in a spell of very wet weather! I have pots with sweet peas, which I love, and a lavender plant in a pot, so I’m surrounded by things that smell lovely! My “after” looks more like her “before” but I am happy to have a little area of mummy calm in the garden. I’m looking out for a little table. There’s a second hand furniture store near us which is a little goldmine! The chairs could probably do with some cushions. I’ve got plans to make some, possibly out of ripstop so it doesn’t matter if they get rained on. Do you have a mummy oasis in your garden?