My wife and I started gardening in Fukuoka (Japan) in 2003. There was nothing but muddy clayey sloping land. At the beginning we made several structure such as steps and paths, and planted turf, fruit trees, roses, herbs etc.
In 2010, we visited several famous English gardens, including Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Mottisfont Abbey Garden and Hidcote Manor Garden. We were shocked by the glory of those gardens. Since then, we have been trying to make small but glorious gardens by ourselves.
We had a lot of plums, so we made jam. We cut the pulp into large pieces, removed the seeds, put them in a saucepan, mixed them with millet sugar and simmered them slowly. 1.3 kg of plums and 300 g of millet sugar yielded exactly 1 kg of jam. When hot, the jam is filled into sterilised jam jars that have been boiled and sterilised.
Sunflowers are planted along the road near my house and are now in full bloom. All the flowers face east, which is spectacular. The flowers look good against the bright blue summer sky.
The rainy season has ended about three weeks earlier than usual and the weather has been midsummer. Many sunflowers are blooming in the potager under the midsummer sun. Many mini tomatoes are also ripening. The Delaware grapes, which we have trained to the fence, are bearing many bunches of small berries. We hope they will grow and ripen safely.
It has been terribly hot in July, but the dwarf buddleia and Chaste tree have started to flower in the blue border flower beds, which will continue to flower until autumn. Catmint is flowering again after being cut back. A few Salvia guaranitica are also flowering.
In the shade garden, the hosta is almost finished flowering.
And the potato vine on the garden room wall continues to bloom with cooler flowers.
The Rose of Sharon in the side yard garden grew naturally, not planted by me, but has produced pure white flowers every year for the past few years. They wilt within a day, but there are many buds, so we can see many flowers every day. Here in the side yard garden, we have two varieties of camellias in March, roses in May and then in July it is the turn of the Rose of Sharon.
The steel shed in the main garden has been in use for just over 20 years, with fake windows (covered with plastic mirrors), but years of moisture had caused corrosion, mainly on the floor, and recently the sliding doors had stopped working properly. So we decided to buy a new shed and after a lot of research we decided on a gable roof design. With the help of my son, the demolition of the old shed was easily completed and a concrete foundation was built for the next shed. The concrete foundation was made by placing instant concrete flat inside the formwork and pouring water over the top. Welded wire mesh was placed inside to strengthen it.
A large cardboard box containing an assembled shed ordered online was delivered, but it weighed 60 kg and didn't budge. We carried the necessary parts little by little into the garden and assembled them, following the assembly instructions. Again, my son helped me. It took two of us half a day to complete it.
I felt that the design was not good enough as it was, so I looked at photos of sheds in the UK and found that they had diamond-shaped roof ornaments, so I decided to make my own and install them. I attached a board of the same colour to the gable, and at the top of the centre I added a slightly deformed diamond-shaped roof ornament.