The big move

I finally have a bit of time to sit down and post about the move.  We have been planning it for such a long time, then suddenly it seemed to go from nothing happening to actually moving overnight. It was a great relief when the previous owners agreed that we could have access to the garden a couple of days before we legally became the owners. This allowed all the plants to be moved over the weekend, with the actual house move happening on the Monday.

A while back I bought 10 fold up crates, the idea being that I could fill them with the small pots, and probably fit all 10 in one car. They were a huge help, the first consignment was packed up on the Friday night ready for the next day:

Each crate took on average 10 plants, so it was also a simple way to work out roughly how many pots I do have.  Come the first move day my sister-in-law and her two kids very kindly came over to give us a hand.  I was right, all 10 crates fitted neatly in one car, with space for a few extra pots around the edge:

With one car loaded with crates, the other was loaded with larger pots:

The new house is only about 10 minutes from the old one, so everyone jumped in the cars and it was over to the house, a quick unload, and back for a second load.  It only took three trips to get all the small pots over and it was very strange when we had finished to look back at terrace and not see a single pot!

The fence looks so orange without all the pots hanging off it. Not to mention the shed with empty shelves.  A lot of the plants in the shed were too delicate to go outside, so they were moved to my kindly donated parents shed.

Once the delicate ones were settled, it was back to sort the pots at the new house.  I had no idea where they were going to live, so was pleased to find a paved area. It was covered in weeds, and a quick clear up revealed the edge of a brick area. This is actually much nicer than the crazy paving, so not sure why they allowed the lawn to grow over it.  I hoped this would give me enough space for the pots until there was time to sort something more permanent. The first set of pots went in nice and easily:

Sadly it filled up more quickly than I would have liked:

It was a bit shocking to have the whole area filled and to turn around to find the overflow:

Given the old garden was tiny, I couldn't figure out where all these pots were stored before. Then it dawned on me that I used a lot of vertical planting, even just taking the two posts outside the patio doors that was 16 pots out of the way.  Thankfully I have a more space to play with:

The garden faces due East, so it gets the sun all day, which is great for my succulents.  At some point expect to see the whole left hand side of the garden with one long succulent bed. In the short term I need to think about this winter and where to house everything.  What you can not see from the photo is a section of garden about 7m x 5m behind the garage. My current thinking is to just stick a roof over the whole bit and everything can go in there. It will make the garden less interesting over winter, but will also keep everything out of the way while the current flower beds are cleared.

Now all I need is some time off from working on the inside of the house to get out to play in the garden.