What a difference a year makes!

Welcome to our garden a year later. When we moved to our new house three years ago, the garden was very plain and could be seen in one blink. Jos and I love to garden and enjoy creating a secret haven to rest and relax in.

We loved the quietness of this neighborhood when we moved here. Times change as neighbors do but I guess that cannot be helped. When our new neighbors moved in last summer, we had to start a major job of putting in a new fenced boundry. We had also built two pergolas and had a vision of this becoming a green oasis creating various areas of the garden that would not be visible all at once. This would make you want to walk around to explore the different areas. Here is a photo of our garden from the same spot with before being taken in December. You can see the bare bones of the fence and pergolas.

The long pergola is finally starting to become a green walkway. Next summer should see it totally covered. It leads to our second terrace where we now have our table and chairs. It is shaded for most of the day, very private and a perfect place to enjoy eating al fresco.

I have also added more garden junk onto the fencing to give it character. A vintage 'mestvork' or manure fork is a perfect place to use for a garden vignette. I added a plant, little lantern and a wooden heart. It looks really nice from the sitting area we now have on the first terrace.

And now for a slight rant so you can stop reading if you would rather not hear this...

Unfortunately, this has created a problem now with our new neighbors. We put up a fence with a trellis fan in each section. The fence was to be planted up from both sides. They only put in about 5 plants along a 12 meter long fence. Jos planted 40 English ivy's just on  the first four sections along with various other plants. It is not filling out at all on the first section which on our side looks right into my studio and part of our living room. The neighbors also have a set of rules for themselves and a set for us. First, the laundry was hung right in front of this fencing in our full view while I was told in what my neighbor mistakenly takes as charming humor that I was not allowed to hang any laundry or he would call the police. Then his wife stopped putting her rack there and it became the spot his two children play who have a tendency to be very loud. Often he and his wife stand there looking at their plants. It began to feel very intrusive and I stopped using my studio. Jos works from home when he can and finds it very distracting to be in the studio where he loves to work.

Last weekend, we added this half fence which is visible on their side only in part of the fan trellis. It is exactly the shape of the fencing already there so as not to look strange for either of us. But I think it made it very obvious to them that all the planting is our own. They showed up the next day to complain about it. They told Jos we had to come to them and basically get their approval before we do any changes. I must say I disagree with them. It is our garden and we think having privacy is a basic human need and right. You cannot please everyone and I love my garden and want to spend time in it when we can. We have already noticed for ourselves how it feels to have our privacy back once again in a week.

Heidi