Is this the place to say hello?

LG_

If yes - hello.

My usual style with forums is just to join in and get to know people gradually, rather than making any kind of announcement about my presence. However, for some reason I feel the need to say a 'proper' hello here, so here it is.

I'm a librarian, who gardens. Until accidentally getting the gardening bug in my late 20s, I was completely uninterested. Then I became very keen indeed. We bought our first house at 30 and I was faced with a garden that consisted entirely of bindweed, nettles, the base of an Anderson shelter and what appeared to be enough glass for a greenhouse but in tiny (

pansyface

Hello LG. I see that Librarians garden is a fact rather than a statement about possession.  Hope you enjoy your visits.

LG_

You can call me LG 

LG_

It was initially possessive, but the site removed the apostrophe.

My post has been severely truncated. Not sure how to add the rest

4thPanda

Hi LG  

Lovely to meet you  This forum is a lovely place 

LG_

Hmmm - whatever I add, it won't go past the 'but tiny' bit. Odd.

pansyface

You'll have to put another sixpence in the meter. You should have got more space than that. And as for removing apostrophes, well what can you do eh?

LG_

Trying again:

We bought our first house at 30 and I was faced with a garden that consisted entirely of bindweed, nettles, the base of an Anderson shelter and what appeared to be enough glass for a greenhouse but in tiny (1-2") pieces. And NOTHING else. Dug and sieved our way over a few years to a garden with shed, lawn, loads of thriving plants, gravel area, veg, patio, path, apple tree and much loveliness.

Then I had babies... and I know lots of people who manage to garden, or even begin gardening, with young children but it didn't work for me (still loved it, just couldn't seem to manage to actually do it). Moved when they were 3 and nearly 1 to current house with much bigger, North-facing garden (approx 130'x26') which was in lovely condition though not particularly to my taste (all trees, shrubs and lawn and no flowers except shrubby ones). Luckily for us this meant that it tolerated quite a bit of neglect without looking too terrible. The downside of this was that many of the trees are conifers, the soil condition was terrible, and when I did try to develop a veg patch or a flower bed I seemed to work hard and never see any results, which led to more neglect. The fences started falling down and the garden got very overgrown - ivy, brambles, more ivy and endless green alkanet, and then the job started to seem overwhelming.

This could only go on for so long. I got to the point where I didn't really go out in the garden because it depressed me. I knew we needed to get the fences sorted before we could do anything to create the kind of garden I could manage and love, so last winter we bit the bullet and used the opportunity to get the embarrassing amount of overgrowth sorted as part of the fencing job. I spent the following six months working out a design for the rest of the garden while digging out weeds and getting to know the garden better than I have done in the 10 years we've lived here (I like to take my time, and can't commit until it feels right. It didn't feel right for a LONG time). And now we've just got started on that, with the formerly completely uneven and unusable patio and broken path redone. The rest is up to us. It's going to be more work than I predicted but I'm excited and I know we'll get there.

So that's me.

I'm already loving this forum and have been using your expertise to solve many a plant ID problem, not to mention great advice on raising the level of my lawn - thank you.

LG_

I used a 'smaller than' symbol in my text. Removed it and it's posted fine. You live and learn, eh?

pansyface

This forum has lots of funny little ways.

Fishy65

Hi LG and welcome  I only started gardening seriously about 2 years ago and have learnt much from the good people on this site.