Garden-Making Diary: Buying a House with an Attic and a Large Terrace

Going against the market, I bought a new house with an attic and a large open-air terrace, ignoring how many people questioned, opposed and belittled the decision, all for the garden dream in my heart that I did not want to speak aloud to those people.

Many people advised me to convert the attic, which originally had an internal staircase, to an external staircase and then rent it out for seven or eight K a year in rent. I really could not bring myself to tell them that the attic and the terrace are the goal I have been striving toward for so long, a way of life I have always wanted. Kindred spirits are not by my side; they are all online, including all of you.

After I got the new house in March, the tense yet simple renovation began. Every day I would stand on the terrace where spring snow had fallen, facing the north wind, imagining for a while what this blank 36 sq m space would look like in the future, ablaze with flowers.

Early last summer, I started work on the terrace floor, which amounted to an extra layer of waterproofing, and it put my mind a little more at ease.

The terrace was perfectly flat and had absolutely no separation from the neighbor's place. In front of the terrace there was only a low wall one meter high, with no protective railing either. There were also two ugly ventilation pipes sticking up there, and one of them was planted right smack in front of the window.

The construction waste after the work filled four large woven plastic sacks. The workers said I could just throw it down from the roof, which gave me a fright. Never mind a big sack weighing seventy or eighty jin, even half a brick thrown down could cause an accident. In the end I carried all this waste down and threw it out myself.

Next came building the flower beds. Relatives helped and gave me more than four hundred hollow blocks. There was no way around it, I had no money, so I had to carry them all upstairs myself again.

And this table and chair set, I do not know who threw it out. I picked it up and brought it home as if I had found a treasure. It had originally fallen apart, so I bought new screws and fixed it back together.

I actually cannot find the photos of building the flower beds. I did the string lines and laid the blocks myself too. It was fairly level, and more importantly it saved money. Poor folks have to budget carefully to get by, haha.

I swore I could not drag things out any longer. The first thing was to deal with the protective railing...

After the railing was finished, snow was forecast at the time. I was afraid it would rust, so I did not dare delay. I bought paint and brushed on two coats myself, which took three days, and then a heavy snow came. My timing was just perfect.

Next was the waterproofing layer inside the flower beds. The waterproofing company said the temperature had to be above zero before they could do the work, so I had to patiently wait until May to start.

As soon as the flower bed waterproofing was done, I immediately started on the flower soil without stopping... First I went to the outside of a heating company's wall in the suburbs and dug out 5 big sacks of furnace slag by hand, carried them home, smashed them piece by piece, and spread them at the bottom of the flower beds as a drainage layer.

I scrounged a pile of insulation boards from a friend's factory and fitted them on the inner side of the flower beds. This was to get through the winter safely; I will not go into detail here.

Next was the crucial flower soil. I had someone buy 28 sacks of garden field soil and 17 sacks of water sand. This stuff is too heavy, so I could only pay to hire a worker. The other 23 sacks of leaf mold were relatively lighter, and I carried them upstairs myself in two batches, saving 180 yuan in labor.

I mixed the garden field soil, leaf mold and water sand, each with insecticide and fungicide. That was another big project, and my old back nearly broke from exhaustion.

Finally, a record of the current state of the plants and flowers.

I had thought this area was below the north wall of the north terrace and should be very shady. I had originally chosen shade-loving plants for this area, such as heuchera (coral bells), but unexpectedly the afternoon sun shone straight over without any obstruction. The heuchera, whose color I had been worried about, actually became even more brilliantly colorful. It seems it is fairly sun-tolerant after all, which was a relief. Only that one Endless Summer hydrangea, exposed to the afternoon west sun, had its tender leaves slightly scorched and dry.

This golden privet (Ligustrum sinense 'Variegatum') was carried all the way back to Inner Mongolia from Shanghai at the end of May. When first planted it was a bit wilted, so I pruned it into a ball, and now all the new branches have grown out.

The blazing star (Liatris spicata) shot up very fast. A month ago it was only a few cm, and now it is almost 1 m tall, with flower buds showing too. But strangely, is not blazing star supposed to be purple? What it is showing now is red.

The sky-blue sage (Salvia azurea) was also brought back from Shanghai. It blooms continuously, with a slender, graceful form, and I planted it next to Pink Dawn. The blue sage, however, grew ridiculously big and stole the show. I have already pulled out several, and I do not plan to plant it again in the future.

The petunia was sown from seed last autumn. It looked sickly indoors all winter, and in spring I hung it on the terrace, where the fierce wind and dust blew it half to death. Later I simply gave it a buzz cut, and as a result it grew back like this. Yesterday's heavy rain battered off quite a few more petals.

I also planted a jujube tree. I had thought it would only flower and fruit next year, but unexpectedly this year it already gave me hope.

The lowest nighttime temperature in our area is just over minus twenty degrees Celsius, so it seems the success of this covering method is still quite promising.

Ha.