The plan for the garden

When I started out with the blank canvas of grass and apple trees I was a little overwhelmed and I have to say a nice expanse of grass does have a certain appeal especially when just mown. But I do like flowers so whilst pregnant with my first child I started to created a small border along the curve of a path to put in sweet peas. I was very pleased with my attempt but looking back now at the photos it was slightly pathetic and could hardly be said to add to the garden.

However I persevered and after a year of living with the garden and learning what was where and how it was affected by the weather and prevailing winds I decided that the bed at the top of the lawn by the bungalow should be a ‘hot’ bed with reds, oranges and yellows and after a couple of years the word ‘tropical’ was also used to define that bed. No bananas yet though.

At the bottom of the top lawn I had a lovely old apple tree with a 2 foot wide trunk which unfortunately had canker (nasty wasting disease that can spread to other trees) so I had to get it chopped down, though they don’t chop anymore do they, they chain saw them. Any way it had to go and because of the ‘shrubbery’ at the back of the lawn the area was quite shaded so I decided a ‘cool’ bed to balance the ‘hot’ bed at the other end of the lawn. The bed started a bit narrow and has slowly expanded to 6 foot deep as I have got more plants. I never have had the money to go and buy 5 of this and 3 of that to fill up the beds quickly.

I have always wanted a pond and after a couple of years whilst having a 5 year old and a toddler I decided to dig the pond. It did cross my mind that I should wait until they were older but since they were never in the garden with out me I thought it should be safe. Never having dug a pond before I had no idea quite how hard it was going to be. I didn’t want to use a rigid liner and so marked out a shape by hand. I made the mistake of having it follow the straight edge of the path along one side, it is never going to look right along that edge and if I did it again I would have a more natural curve all the way around.

The pong digging took much longer than I thought it would, kept going back and doing a bit more and then a bit more. After the foot or so of top soil was removed the sub soil had quite a lot of clay and was no good for topping up other borders so I had to find room under my privet hedges, I don’t think they have suffered for a top dressing of sub soil and it’s out of sight it was either that or hire a skip and carry buckets of soil up the garden through the garage and out to a skip.

No photos of pond digging – pre digital – obviously no film in the camera that couple of weeks.

Having finally finished digging the pond purchased a butyle liner, again another unknown, irregular shaped hole in the ground don’t want to get a liner either too small or too large. However the wastage was minimal. The pond once filled and established looked fine for while with a gentle slope at one end for wildlife to access the water and a small water feature. However at some point a slow leak has developed and the normal water level is constantly 2 or 3 inches lower than looks good. Have tried to patch where I think the leak was but it’s still happening. One of those problems that will need a good think about and some sort of solution but what ever it is will take time and effort so it’s on the back burner.
The silly little bed created for sweet peas in that first year had evolved gradually into quite a substantial mixed border with two hand built obelisks for growing climbers. I did have a perennial sweet pea on one but it got so untidy by mid summer that this year I have taken it out and plan to plant a new variety of climbing petunia. This is being done with mixed feelings as have tried with petunias in hanging baskets over the years and given up because of the mildew so we’ll have to see how they fare.

The bottom of the garden was once a well tended vegetable patch as evidenced by the richness of the soil and the rows of rusted soft fruit support that we all that was remaining when I got the garden. As the worst of the mess was hidden behind the shrubbery it got sorted very slowly initially just by mowing the weeds and brambles until the submitted and I was just left with grass. It then became just a play area for the boys and more lawn and has now become the start of the veg patch and room for the trampoline.