Firepit Gravel Garden Project

Bank Holiday weekends are a great time to get bigger projects done don't you think?

When we bought our house the garden was pretty much a blank slate with little to no interest factor. Devoid of character. So it's fair to say that we have a very long-term project in our hands and that suites me just fine. I'm always in awe of people who build gardens from nothing to being something quite spectacular years later. That's the goal!

One of the things I was quite keen on having in our garden is a firepit seating area. I can just picture enjoying a cup of hot chocolate or roasting marshmallows with family and friends throughout the summer and autumn months.

Step one was to mark the gravel area. The idea is to have lots of lovely plants surrounding it so I placed the few anchor plants around the area to get a feel for what it will look and feel like one day. To ensure that we had the right spacing we put some garden furniture in place which gave us an idea of whether it needed to be slightly bigger or smaller and marked the outline with the hosepipe.

Next came the heavy work, lifting the sod and digging a trench to sink the recycled coping stones that we had found in a bit of a dumping area behind the hedge you see in the photograph above. On a side note, that area has been cleared out and we plan to make it a secret woodland garden which will be another fun project.

The only thing we had to spend any money on was the gravel. It took more gravel than we anticipated but overall this was not an expensive project at all and we are thrilled with the result.

It's been in place for a week now and we have yet to use it thanks to lots of rainy weather, but we are looking forward to adding good friends to the mix and enjoying many happy evenings of fireside chats in the future. 

I'm also looking forward to those hydrangeas growing year after year, I can just picture their big mopheads adding to the magic in years to come. All that's left is some solar fairy lights and I think we are done!

Have a lovely week everyone!