Garden, Take 3

If you’ve been reading this blog for some time (thank you, thank you, always nice to see you), you may remember posts about my garden. If you’re new, or want to refresh your memory, try here or here or watch a slide-show with music here.

This is our third home since I got into gardening. That garden was enormous and I loved being out there. There was always something to do. The next garden was considerably smaller. I loved having much less grass to mow, and reduced the lawn further with a hedge and shrubs. This second garden was small but there was still enough to do to keep me interested, and enough seclusion to hide away and watch the birds in the leaves.

Now we barely have any garden at all. (I should maybe explain that the church provides the house, which is great in many ways, but we don’t get to choose, and I’ll keep the pension implications for another post in about 9 years time). This is a corner house, with a small concrete yard at the back and a strip of garden to the side and front. Or, as the front door is at the side of the house, should that read the front and the side? We still get confused, two years on.

I have struggled to come to terms with this garden, but I am starting to hatch some plans, which I will share with you…

That’s the front (side?) garden. It lies to the north of the house and gets very little sun. There’s a lovely rowan tree behind that bush, and a lovely fuchsia, looking like it’s had a very hard pruning, by the fence. Because of the shade, I don’t think there’s much to be done here, other than erecting a metre-high trellis to hide the compost bins, with something shade-loving (ivy?) growing up it. The gate leads through to the back (front? side?) garden.

When we came, there was only grass apart from a very small (1X2m) vegetable bed in that back left hand corner (you’re looking north here). I extended the bed a bit and tried some veg, but the pigeons ate the brassicas, and other things just didn’t do very well. Last spring I extended the bed further along the hedge towards the south. I planted a Himalayan birch (silver birch is one of my favourite trees), with two dogwoods in front of it and a photinia to the side of it. The idea is that when I sit in my study, I can look out and see some winter colour against the green hedge. I put in raspberries, which seemed to do quite well, a blackcurrant bush, a forsythia, and some lavender for the bees.

I’d like to put in a pond somewhere near here. It will have to be very small, but I’m told it’s the best thing a gardener can do for wildlife. I’d also like to extend the planting, perhaps almost to the patio. I’d like more shrubs, probably fruit bushes. I think the trick with a small space is to go upwards. It will need some careful planning so that the plants to the south don’t shade those behind them.

This is the view looking south. There’s a rockery of sorts at the far end, with two fuchsias, some holly, a small acer tree, a self-seeded hawthorn that I’m encouraging, and a cupressus that I’m discouraging. I planted daffodils along the hedge because we love them. The first ones are just coming up. Mrs M started playing swingball during lockdown and developed an exercise routine based on it, so she needs enough open space beyond the patio to swing her ball, and that pretty much takes you to the hedge. She would like the patio extended but I’m reluctant. We’ll never match the existing slabs. Maybe gravel? A little Japanese-style planting somehow around the edge?

My aim is to have a garden that is pleasant to look at (and somewhere to play swingball), that provides shelter and food for wildlife (and a little for us), and that occupies me in my time off without being burdensome. I’ll keep you posted…