Garden | Oxley Woods Living

Posts Tagged ‘garden’

Something light and flowery…

September 8, 2009

To counter act the angst and frustration of recent posts a little, here’s some light refreshment!

The flowers supplied by George Wimpey are apparently quite carefully chosen to be wild/native and/or supportive of the local ecology. All rings true with the eco theme of the Oxley Woods housing development here in Milton Keynes.

Anyway, we have had a lot of small wildlife, lots of bees, wasps, some butterfly activities and lots of ladybirds. Here’s some photos…

Most of the flowers are originals, we’ve done some growing, tomatoes (great!), peppers (failed), corn (doing OK, but tiny!), strawberries (not so much fruit, lots of plantlets) and blueberry (success!). We’re pleased we left things as they were, apart from maintenance, weeding and the like, as the garden is pretty colourful from spring onwards, the the little wildlife is quite nice to watch.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed some light refreshment!

Tags: bees, eco homes, eco house, eco houses, eco housing, flowers, garden, gardening, milton keynes, oxley park, oxley woods, sunflower, wasps, wildlife
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It isn’t all doom and gloom at Oxley Woods

November 2, 2008

While the discovery another damp area, and finally witnessing first hand a leak we’d seen the effects of last night were certainly depressing, it hasn’t been all doom and gloom around these parts lately.

Recently the temperature has really dropped, and we have had the heating on now for limited times, we’re experimenting with using the heating as little as possible, no point living in a high insulated eco house if you heat it up like an oven. Might have to get some slippers though, the rooms that are yet to have any floor fitted get chilly underfoot for sure.

Anyway, it’s been Halloween and we’ve had some snow, so I thought I’d share some photos of the season to lift the mood a little. Among them is a shot of the skylight, which is just fantastic, wouldn’t want to be without one now we’ve got one! Also for Halloween we ran a load of LED christmas lights around the French drain to uplight the house in a “spooky” way. It reflected really nicely off the silver Trespa panels, and we’re seriously considering doing something similar on a full time basis when we replace the standard light-house powered outside light the house came with!

Also shown is a photo of our lawn, which is the one and only good thing to come from our seemingly never ending list of problems at the home. As a goodwill gesture, George Wimpey arrange for the lawn to be turfed (they come with just mud as standard) and they also laid a patio around the rear of the house, and fitted a gate so we can get to the back garden without traipsing through the house. Very much appreciated, certainly saved me a lot of work!