A 40-year-old house, she spent only 1 year turning it into a big garden, everyone wants to move in

Gardening Encyclopedia

 

Subscription Account

Click to follow, Huahua teaches you to grow flowers!

Author: Zhijian Fanhua

Source: Taihua Xing

Many people who have lived in the city for a long time long to return to their hometown, 

and live again in the old house from their childhood memories, watching the curling cooking smoke and rolling wheat waves.

But due to various irresistible factors, very few people can actually make it happen...

Today, Huahua would like to introduce a flower friend named "Zhijian Fanhua,"

and right now, she is slowly realizing her dream of a rural countryside life!

Fanhua has a comfortable home and a leisurely job in the city

In her spare time she keeps her home looking like a fairyland

(Fanhua's home in the city)

But Fanhua always misses the days of living in her hometown,

misses the laughter and joy in the old house,

After much hesitation, she resolved to renovate the old house in her hometown that is over 40 years old,

so that after retirement, she can enjoy flowers in spring and sweep leaves in autumn

Before the old house renovation:

After the old house renovation:

Repairing the exterior of the house

G A R D E N I N G E N C Y C L O P E D I A

The old house had not been lived in for over ten years,

Although Fanhua's mother went back once or twice a year to tidy up,

the house was still full of weeds in the yard, cold and deserted

Repairing the old house and repaving the surrounding paths

became the first step in realizing her garden dream

(Clearing away the weeds and sweeping away the dust)

(Replacing the dirt path with a gravel path)

Because of work, Fanhua could only return to her hometown on weekends and holidays,

To prevent the flowers from being stolen, and to prevent them from drying out from lack of watering over long periods,

she came up with the clever idea of using heavy tires to grow flowers

She needed a large number of tires, and only got them after asking quite a few friends

She cleaned the tires thoroughly inside and out,

then painted them in the colors she wanted and left them in the sun to dry

To grow flowers in them, holes had to be drilled.

Fanhua calls herself a tough girl, because she completed all the work of drilling holes in the tires with an electric drill herself.

After drilling the holes, she put soil into the tires, planted flowers, and a tire flower pot was complete!

Because she could not go back often to care for the flowers and plants,

the flowers she grew in the tires were all shade-tolerant and drought-tolerant plants like spider plants and ivy

But how could shade-tolerant green plants alone be enough?

To make the garden more colorful,

she also planted hydrangeas all over the open ground around the house

A year later, the hydrangeas bloomed as promised,

and the ivy in the tires was about to trail onto the ground

Backyard renovation

G A R D E N I N G E N C Y C L O P E D I A

In Fanhua's hometown, every household has a long, narrow room behind the house,

This room is called a "tuoyan room," used specifically for raising chickens and ducks and storing firewood

She removed all the old, worn-out windows of the tuoyan room,

and used the vegetable jars her mother could not bear to throw away as decorations set into the wall

Because the tuoyan room had poor ventilation and bad light,

she removed all the roof beams

To make it more convenient to go in and out,

she also opened up the wall connecting the tuoyan room with the main house

She planted flowers in tires and hung them on the wall of the tuoyan room,

and flowers grown in old jars also looked quite beautiful

Repairing the flower bed

G A R D E N I N G E N C Y C L O P E D I A

In the yard of the old home there was a flower bed 18 m long and 2 m wide,

Because it had not been used for a long time, it was piled full of clutter,

Fanhua planned to clear it out and plant it full of roses, peonies...

First she used hollow bricks to make a low wall and enclose the flower bed

To make the flower bed more ornamental,

she used a small fence and stones she had picked up to pave a path through the middle of the flower bed

For safety, she also put a layer of iron mesh around the outside of the flower bed

After the work was done, Fanhua planted hydrangeas, roses, peonies, rain lilies here...

A year later, the daylilies, roses, dahlias, clematis... in the flower bed were all blooming vibrantly!

Building a pavilion

G A R D E N I N G E N C Y C L O P E D I A

(Front of the pigsty)

In the yard there was an eyesore of a pigsty

Fanhua thought about it for a long time: should she demolish it or renovate it?

She had always wanted a small pavilion,

and on second thought, she decided it would be better to convert it into a pavilion!

(Back of the pigsty)

She asked someone to demolish the entire exterior of the pigsty, leaving only the frame

For the roof she also chose a material with better waterproofing

After the pavilion was built,

Fanhua used the leftover wood to make a set of tables and chairs,

and also placed flowers and plants in the pavilion

After the pigsty renovation was finished, the manure pit became another problem

After much thought, she decided to fill in the manure pit and convert it into a lotus pond

She used the stones from the demolished tuoyan room to fill the bottom, covered it with soil, and made the pond about 60 cm deep

To prevent the water in the pond from overflowing after heavy rain,

she also specially set up a drainage outlet beside the pond

The family's pig feed trough, used for decades, also came in handy,

she used them all to plant pennywort

After the renovation was complete, she planted 'Grand Parade' roses around the pavilion

She raised fish in the water vat and put in water lilies

A year later, the pavilion no longer showed any trace of the pigsty's former messiness

The 'Grand Parade' roses planted a year earlier had already climbed up the pavilion!

If no one told you, could you imagine that such a beautiful lotus pond was once a manure pit?

The water lilies planted back then had also bloomed into their most delicate form!

Building a lotus pond

G A R D E N I N G E N C Y C L O P E D I A

Fanhua especially loves lotus flowers and water lilies,

Creating a lotus pond was one of her wishes,

But the geological conditions in her hometown were limited, and the lotus pond became the biggest challenge in building the garden

After going through a period of mental struggle

she decided to settle for the next best thing

and use black plastic film and plastic buckets to create a small lotus pond in the rock pits in the yard

She buried the plastic buckets in the rock pits and covered them with black plastic film

Then she used soil to secure the plastic buckets, and a small lotus pond was roughly complete

The clever and handy Fanhua decorated the lotus pond with small rocks and green plants

The fourth rock pit was relatively large and easier to renovate

She lined the bottom of the pond with rocks, then coated the whole thing with cement

Finally, the long-awaited lotus pond was basically finished!

Fanhua said that once she fully retires and has time

she still wants to build a fish pond

and raise a few koi and goldfish

Every day tending flowers,

chatting with neighbors about everyday matters,

falling asleep each night accompanied by the fragrance of flowers, waking up in the mist of the countryside

Fanhua gave herself eight years to realize her garden dream,

The road is not simple,

but with flowers as companions, and gratitude in her heart,

one day, sooner or later, she will live a life as beautiful as poetry!

Author: Zhijian Fanhua

Source: Tahualine

Reproduction without authorization is prohibited; to reproduce, please contact us via the backend for authorization.

Follow  

Flower Growing Complete Guide

     

Huahua  

Teaches you to grow flowers

Reply:

Plant name (such as Money Tree)

: to view the cultivation method

To consult about flower-growing problems, please add the personal WeChat: 2539749321 (long-press to copy)