Helen's Garden Renovation Project

After promising my friends and family for several weeks that I was going to start a blog to keep them updated on my garden renovation progress, I’ve finally done it! I have just been out to move some more compost and dig up a few plants, but it is now raining too much, so I thought I would get the blog started.

I have never written a blog before. For those of you who have never written a blog either, the screen that I am typing into looks different from the screen you are looking at. There are seven buttons at the right hand side of the screen, and I am a bit worried to see that one of them says “Post slug”. I am having enough trouble keeping them off my primulas without adding them to my blog. No doubt it will all become clear as I get more experienced.

This morning, as the weather forecasters had promised, we had a couple of inches of snow. So, a good day for taking photographs, not going to work, and not gardening.

I called this post “Winter is attempted” because by noon most of the snow had melted, and then it started raining. We may get some further snowfalls in February, but no one is promising anything.

Today I decided to tackle the bigger of the two conifers and dig it up completely. I dug a large circular hole around the conifer and used long-handled loppers to cut off its roots as I went along. It was quite hard work because of the quantity of soil I had to shift, but it wasn’t very daunting. Now I just have the other conifer to dig up, which I will do another day. I want to keep the tree stumps but saw them up into logs and leave them somewhere as a refuge for wildlife.

Today I continued to work on removing the conifers behind the blackberry frame. As you can see, I have trimmed off all the branches. I have also sawn off the top of the bigger conifer so the trunks are now the same height. It was quite hard work sawing the top off the conifer and it was a bit nerve-racking as I wasn’t sure how the top would fall, but in the end it fell gracefully with hardly a clunk. Now I just have to dig up what is left.

Yvonne came for a brief visit to check with me that the general shape of her design would be acceptable. She is going to put in a diagonal lawn, edged neatly with the same small blocks that have been used for the patio edging, but the diagonal will point to the grey-blue conifer in the far left corner of the garden, not to the greenhouse. The curves in the existing patio will be changed to straight lines, and all the lines will go either along the edge of the house, or at right angles to the edge of the house, or at 45 degrees to the other lines. This includes the greenhouse, which will be octagonal. Yvonne proposes having the newt pond and the frog pond right next to each other. The two ponds will have a square cross-section with a diagnonal line separating the two ponds. The frog pond will be a few inches deep, and will be at about ground level or slighly above, while the newt pond will be raised up and will have a brick wall around it and some slabs at the top of the wall which people can sit on when they want to look at the newts.

The design is exciting, but scary. For a garden designer, this is probably a very ordinary design, but for me it is far removed from anything I would create myself. The lawn is quite small – it has to be, because so much else has to fit into the plan – but will it look silly because it is too small? One corner of the lawn will cut into the patio. Will this look as if it interlocks neatly, or will it look as if I measured the lawn up wrongly and ended up having it overflowing into the patio? But I have made my decision. I will be brave, and I will trust Yvonne’s experience, and I will make this design a reality.

One thing I am very pleased about is the location of the pond. It is about as far away from the neighbouring deciduous trees as it could possibly be, so that will help reduce the number of leaves that I have to clear out. Its shape may also make it possible for me to construct a couple of nets to put over the top in autumn. The pond is nearer the house than the present pond, so that means it will be more in the shade, but it is further from the leylandii on the left hand side, so with luck it will get enough light altogether. Having the pond nearer the house makes it more likely that I will be able to hear the frogs in spring. Although noise generally annoys me, I would be happy to hear the frogs enjoying themselves.

Today Yvonne came round to measure up the garden ready for drawing up her plan. I have tried to measure the garden before, and it is not easy, even when there is nothing in it to get in the way. I watched Yvonne, in between making her cups of tea, and learnt the following:

(1) You need a long tape measure.

(2) In fact, you need more than one tape measure. Three is good. Lay one of them along an edge you know is straight, like along the house wall, and use the others to make measurements at right angles to that.

(3) Do not write down all the measurements on a piece of plain paper, because when you get home, you will find that something doesn’t match up. Draw the plan as you go along using a piece of graph paper.

(4) Allow lots of time. My garden is not a big one and is not a complicated shape, but it took Yvonne two and a half hours.

(5) Do not use a brown pencil to write with because when you drop it in the undergrowth you will have no chance of finding it again.

Today Yvonne came to see me for the first time. She came round in time to take some photographs before it got too dark, and we talked for an hour about it. I gave Yvonne a document I had written called “Garden Aspirations”. It listed my ingredients for a perfect garden, which are:

• Pond for newts and water plants
• Another pond for frogs and birds
• Tool storage place
• Greenhouse
• Somewhere to put compost bins that is more convenient than the side of the house
• Vegetable plots
• Fruit trees and plants
• Lawn (but not necessarily a big one)

I also wrote down a list of things I like:

• Stepping stones in plant patches for easy maintenance
• Natural stone generally
• Neat edges to beds and borders
• Rockery
• Changes in height (difficult in a level plot!)
• Untouched corners for wildlife to use

and made a list of things I don’t like. I am pleased to note that this is a lot shorter than the list of things I do like.

• Gravel (gets everywhere and gets weeds in it)
• Decking (far inferior to stone)
• Bog garden (dreadful to weed and looks terrible in the winter)

Then I listed the jobs I like doing and the ones I don’t like doing. I wasn’t really conscious of not liking certain jobs, but I decided that if there was anything that I was neglecting, it was probably because I didn’t like doing it.

Jobs I like:

• Propagating, especially by seed
• Weeding if not too onerous
• Mowing the lawn
• Harvesting
• Light trimming of plants

Jobs I don’t like:

• Serious amounts of pruning
• Lawn edging
• Weeding if I think I am losing the battle

I also made a list of plants that I had got and wanted to keep, plants that I had got but would rather not have, plants that I hadn’t got but would like to have, and plants that I hadn’t got and had no intention of acquiring.

Immediately Yvonne came up with some ideas. She considered that the greenhouse was essential, given my love of propagating, and suggested getting a pretty hexagonal or octagonal one that could go in the right-hand far corner, which is the sunniest position in the garden, and form a focal point instead of being hidden away somewhere. She also suggested putting a tool store against the wall in the narrow passage where the compost bins are at the moment, and moving the compost bins somewhere else. She also said that to make the garden look longer, using the diagonals would help. Now, I did actually know this from reading a few assorted garden design books, but it still seemed weird to me to align things diagonally, and I needed the confidence to do it.

I really felt good after talking about gardens with Yvonne because she is so enthusiastic. I felt that there was some hope for the garden, and instead of seeing the renovation project as a long haul, I felt that it would be really exciting. I explained that what I needed was a complete plan that I could work to, but do in stages over about three years. My reasons for running the project over a long period instead of doing it over a couple of weeks were:

(1) I will be able to do more of it myself, which will be cheaper and more fun than hiring professionals.

(2) I will be able to see the garden evolving, and will be able to make any corrections necessary as it develops, whereas if I do it all in one go I might not realise what the mistakes are until it is too late.

(3) I am a patient person who enjoys the journey as much as the destination.

(4) The garden has quite a few mature shrubs in it. If I renovate the garden in stages, it won’t look completely bleak and bare at any time.

(5) If I know in advance which plants I want, I can buy small specimens or seeds and grow them on myself for a year or two, saving a great deal of money. I still get satisfaction from pointing to my magnificent hibiscus in the frong garden and saying, “I grew that from seed, you know.”

I was highly amused when Yvonne went through my list of plants that I don’t want. They are:

• Mahonia (I know it flowers when nothing else is, but it’s still ugly).
• Large-leaved clematis (actually I like them, but they always die).
• Anything too sprawly that looks a mess whatever you do with it. (Would be prepared to try again with heather and try and remember to trim it each year).
• Anything spiny that needs pruning (e.g. Berberis).
• Mop-head hydrangea (don’t know why, just don’t like it).
• Cotoneaster (there is enough of it out in front).
• Roses (I already have two, in pots, which were both presents).

She didn’t argue about the berberis, cotoneaster and roses (roses don’t grow well in sandy soil, apparently) but did her best to change my mind about the mahonia and mop-head hydrangea. This is exactly what I would expect from a plant lover. She didn’t convince me, but it was lovely that she tried.

Now I have described the failings of the left and right hand corners of the garden, here is what is wrong with the rest.

(1) The crazy-paving paths don’t match the patio in materials. They also aren’t on quite the same level as the patio.

(2) The border on the right hand side is too wide and therefore difficult to maintain. It needs to have stepping stones in it or be a different, more accessible shape.

(3) The viburnum is not really the most exciting plant to have right in the middle of the back border. Also something keeps eating its leaves.

(4) There isn’t enough space to grow vegetables.

(5) My compost bins are kept at the side of the house, but it isn’t very convenient because the space is so narrow. I have to walk right to the end to dump my fruit and vegetable peelings.

That’s mostly it. In addition, there are things that I would like to add to the garden to improve it.

(1) A greenhouse. I love raising plants. I would like to get my tomatoes and courgettes started early, and also have somewhere to put my cuttings and seed trays.

(2) A tool store. At the moment I have to go right round to the front of the house to get any tools that I want from the garage. This means that I either have to leave the garage door open while I am in the back garden and risk having things stolen, or keep opening and closing the door, which is a nuisance.

(3) Two ponds. My current pond is very popular with the newts, who aren’t worried about it being lop-sided, but I never get any frog tadpoles. I think this is because the newts eat the spawn. The frogs seem to be well aware of this, and only put some spawn in it at the end of the mating season, once they have filled up everyone else’s pond. I would like a deep pond for newts and a shallow pond for frogs. Possibly the newts will take them both over, but at least I will have tried.

I shall now look at the left hand corner of the garden. There are even more things wrong with that, if this is possible.

This is the view I have when I look out of my patio doors in the sitting room.

It’s not a very good shot of the corner because I was trying to show off the colours of the patio in the rain, but it’s the best one I can find at the moment.

The main problem is that the patio area looks massive, the amount of lawn looks tiny, and the back fence looks far too close.

Other problems you can’t see from this picture are: the right hand edge of the pond has sunk, so that means that when the pond is as full as possible, you can still see several inches of pond liner on the right hand side.

The photinia behind the pond is too vigorous for the amount of space it has.

The raspberry frame ( you can see two of its six posts at the left of the picture) is redundant now that all the raspberries that used to grow in it have died of a virus. I can’t grow raspberries in there again unless I replace all the soil, and I don’t think it is worth it, given that the last lot only lasted for a few years.

There is an area around the pond where there are rocks and stepping stones, and I wanted to grow alpines there, but because of the slight slope of the garden, this area tends to get flooded from time to time. So not much grows there, apart from weeds, which I am always fighting.

I have a bog garden around the pond, but it is a nightmare to keep weed-free, and it doesn’t look good in winter because everything in it has died down.

I have been thinking about not just what I hate about my garden as it is, but also what I like. I like the patio, although it is probably too big and the wrong shape. I like the blue conifer (Chamaecyparis Lawsonia Pelts Blue) in the far left corner, and I love the camellia, which grows happily in the deep shade in the right hand corner of the garden nearest the house. This photograph was taken in March 2004. Just look. Isn’t it gorgeous?

The marjoram that I have growing in a shady corner near the house does brilliantly. Another huge success is the vinca minor which provides first class ground cover for the patch where the honeysuckle grows up the trellis against the back wall of the house. Both these plants have done very well in deep shade.

On the other hand, what’s wrong with the garden may take several entries to cover, so I’ll just start with one corner. Here’s a picture of the far right hand corner, taken in February 2006. (The reason I took the photo at the time was to show how the rain brought out the colours in the patio).

In the sunniest part of the garden, that far right hand corner, I have put a blackberry frame and behind it, an enormous conifer (another Chamaecyparis Lawsonia variety, but I am not sure whether it is Dutch Gold or Variegata. The colour suggests Dutch Gold, but the vigour suggests Variegata). To the left of the enormous conifer, another rather big one. Along the back fence, at the left edge of the picture, you can see a massive viburnum partly in flower. That’s a good plant, but it’s huge, and it gets viburnum beetle, or whatever it is that eats up its leaves. Along the side fence I have a Pieris, a Buddleia Black Knight, a Hibiscus Blue Bird and a Ceanothus Autumnal Blue. But I might as well not have them at all, because I can’t see them, and they can’t see the sun, and although they try valiantly to survive, it’s not easy for them. They are good plants, but they are in the wrong place. Further along the side fence, the bay tree is growing well but is out of control. However, it is so delicious in cooking that I forgive it for trying to take over the garden. The euonymous (the low-growing bright yellow mound – actually four plants) adds some valuable colour to the garden in winter. That’s definitely staying, although not necessarily in that exact place. Directly in front of the blackberry frame you should be able to make out a magnolia if you put your glasses on and look carefully. It sulked for a few years when I moved it from its original position, but for the last couple of years it has put on a magnificent show. However, I think it will turn out to be in the wrong place again when the garden is redesigned. I don’t think it can be moved again, and I am getting myself ready to say goodbye to it.

So, to sum up: the sunniest corner of the garden is being wasted, and the top of my right-hand border isn’t doing much good either.