As seen on TV.

Back in May, a couple of months after we moved in, we had a film crew around for a day to shoot a TV commercial. What they were looking for was a big enough garden to film and also make a mess in. As we hadn't done much with the garden by that stage it worked out perfectly. Luke had dug the area where we were placing the greenhouse so they used this as a mud bath. We hadn't planted very much by then so they embellished our garden with pots of lavender and some daises which immediately brightened up the border. They also added some children's toys to make it look like a family garden.
Here is a photograph of the shoot; see if you can work out which advert it is for.

My second garden 2004 - 2009

Take a walk through our garden, it's quicker than having to read all my descriptive waffle.



If you can't access the video then here are some pics to give you an idea of what we started with and how we progressed.







Luke getting in some r & r before the hard work starts - he doesn't know it yet but he will end up cutting down a massive oak tree in the neighbour's garden, digging up old roots, concreted-in posts, dismantle a dangerous brick wall, design and build a fence, raised pathway and decking area and provide a house and run for chickens. Phew!





The work begins..,










When we first moved in we had a huge oak tree next door which starved the garden of light. The old boy who had planted it as a youngster, just a few feet from his back door, still lived in the house but was ready for it to be taken down so we did just that for him although we made the mistake of cutting all the branches off it first and then had nowhere to stand whilst cutting it down from the top. In the end we had to hire scaffolding which cost us £70 so it was an expensive lesson learned. However, this opened up the garden and offered us the opportunity to plant lots of things which needed full sun instead of a few bluebells which seemed to be the only things growing there before.




















We knocked down a rickety shed and then Luke slaved over a raised wooden walkway I'd designed in a curvy shape, crossing the little pond I had made and then stepping up to a higher deck area in a kidney shape. We softened the edges with planting and lined the walkway with lavender. Our favourite plant was a small standard olive we bought for a tenner which absolutely thrived. I read that olives should be pruned to allow a small bird to fly through it's branches and it seemed to enjoy it's 'haircut', shooting out new growth almost immediately. The year before we left it had three lovely looking olives on it.




Here we have made some leeway, having put up the fence and deck but still have to put in the raised curving pathway and taking up the small patch of grass to make two wide borders each side of the path. At this stage we haven't even thought about chickens or a courtyard yet.






























The same year I spent over £1000 on cobbles so I could lay my own courtyard design which I started by drawing a design on graph paper after skimming through a pebble mosiac book. I began the design very diligently using a half metre square frame I'd knocked up but soon gave up on that and ended up doing my usual 'freestyle', working by eye (which is why it was so wonky).

I spent 11 days on my knees for 10 hours a day to complete the courtyard - a real labour of love. The cat hated having to walk over it and I had to pressure wash it every other month to dislodge the fallen leaves and suchlike which settled in between the cobbles but I loved looking down at it from the upstairs window. When it comes to fashion for me it's always comfort before looks but I turn that around in my garden and try to make it look as beautiful as possible with little thought to how it will function. With practise I am getting better but it's been another learning curve.




Shakira checks it out for me.

My first garden 1996 - 2004

This was my first attempt, in 1996, to create a garden from scratch. I kept the leggy herb garden although it never amounted to anything apart from a clipped bay I had planted slightly too close to the house and I found homes for the old Hebe my neighbour unceremoniously threw over our garden fence with the instruction that I needed to plant it up quickly before it's roots baked in the sun!
I pretentiously wanted a Vita Sackville-West all white garden (as you will see from my monochrome border in my current garden I haven't lost the fascination for white plants – the way they glow in the dimming light when everything has faded into the night is glorious) and I stayed true to that until my Grandfather passed away, starting what has become my tradition now – I bought a rose to remind me of him. It was deep orange and stood out like a sore thumb in it's peaceful surroundings but it was reminiscent of him. He had grown flowers in the sixties and seventies for my Grandmother who loved dahlias & chrysanthemums in bright, garish colours. They were all the rage then and I'm glad to see, that like fashion, if you wait long enough they come back into favour. It's wonderful that “anything goes” in a garden. I also made sure I had some of his original Zantedeschia .... (calla lily) which had always drawn admiring comments from the family and graced many family member's gardens. Both my Mum and my Auntie Shir still have it in their gardens. Sadly, when I last moved the bit I dug up didn't survive so I have bought a new one (half price as it's already flowered) from the local garden centre. A little patience will reward me when next Spring it raises triumphantly from the soil to shoot up great tall flowers which are commonly used at weddings and funerals.

What I started with and one year on. (This photo was taken at night time, from above - I have bags of dug up grass (before the green waste scheme) and have just dug out the shape of the lawn.



















Design.
A design was a rather grand description of my little pocket handkerchief sized garden's plan but in the end it was one of the main selling points when we moved. “A truly beautiful garden” is how it was described which impressed me no end. Me? Designing a garden? But I suppose I did design it. Bit by bit it changed until it had a little circular lawn (which only evolved as I kept hacking into it to make more room for yet another plant), a living willow seat and arbour I made after attending a two hour willow planting course. It ended up growing taller than the rooftops and had to be lopped down when a swarm of wasps took a liking to it. I also introduced water to the garden in the form of a teeny pond made out of an old washing up bowl sunk into the ground (it wasn't that bad, honestly and attracted dragonflies and birds who used to drink from it) and an expensive bespoke pergola and decking about eight months before AlanTitchmarsh made it so very popular, situated in the only place left in the garden which wasn't planted up. Luckily for me it was also the last place the sun visited in the evening so I could sit under the wisteria and jasmine which had climbed all over it and enjoy it's scent on a balmy evening from my steamer chair. Around this deck I had cobbles to evoke the beach and even a little sand on the very edges which amazingly never got used as a cat litter by the numerous visiting felines.
On the cat theme, when I first started gardening I didn't use gloves but that changed when I picked up what I thought was a large slug from the branches of the Hebe. It fell apart in my hands, emitting an instant and horrendous smell of cat poo! Lessons to be learned with every experience!



I soon realised the importance of decorative features too; whether it was a little statue of a fairy (very twee) or an old watering can and some metal hoops. Many things can have a place in your garden and whilst they may not have a long life out in the elements they can be enjoyed as they weather and get a little worn around the edges. A favourite old wooden chair only lasted a few years before the legs rotted away but it always looked great in the corner as it promised a secret seating area, tucked behind a big ball of white Spirea. When the Spirea died it was replaced with a Himalyan Honeysuckle which was never really a favourite of mine and led to me always choosing plants that I loved rather than because it was 'useful' planting.

This is how it goes; you learn from your mistakes. If you don't like a plant you can move it or give it away to friends (I'm in the process of doing just that with two bamboo plants that I've inherited yet don't fit in with my idea of a country garden). I don't profess to be a gardener, I just love gardening. I'm sure the knowledgeable gardeners would wince at some of my ideas or practices but what I lack in knowledge I make up for in enthusiasm and hard work. And I'm doing it for myself. I also have an obligation to these little plants to care for them as best as I can so I try my best to give them the closest to their original environment as possible.

Off to Looe

We took a day off greenhouse erecting and popped down to visit Luke's dad. This is the view from his veg patch - how would you ever stop gazing at that and get any work done?
Leafy, the cat from next door, allows me to stroke him - for twenty minutes!

And so grows the veg patch.

Luke dug over a patch of ground, removed a huge amount of stones and roots and then dug in some sand (for drainage) and some soil improver. HE then planted up his earlies which would be followed by his main crop. He spaces them out and is ready to plant up.




A month or so later and the potatoes are growing into strong plants. Luke plants some Trail of Tears beans and adds the wigwam (made from the bamboo canes we cut down - waste not want not) He planted two a few weeks later than the others for succession growing. This extends the eating season as we should have them over a longer period. He also planted a courgette in the middle for companion planting.

Chickens loving our new garden.

Here, Shakira prances off having not got any food from Luke. Note the colour of the scrambled eggs. We are convinced that the luminous orange/yellow shade is from all the grass tips they eat.



Since we have been in this house the chicks don't seem half as destructive as they did in our last garden. Granted, we had no grass there at all so all they could peck at and eat were my plants but now they seem to love scratching around underneath the bird feeders for some seeds that the messy sparrows have knocked out of the feeder before moving onto eating grass tips and borrowing in the shade of the Acer. What with dust baths, eating and sneaking into Jack's garden they have a busy day. They only come out if I'm in the garden too, such is my distrust of the fox but as yet we haven't ever seen one in the area though I feel like it's Russian Roulette everytime I let them out as I'm not sure I would be quick enough to get to the girls before a hungry fox did. However, this concern is tempered by the absolutely lovely time the hens have when they are allowed out of their run so for now I am risking it; taking as many safety precautions as I can. I shall not forgive myself if anything happens to them but will still let them out with me when I'm gardening.
If you are going to keep any animal you really need to research them throoughly first (I'm sure everyone knows this already). When something relies on you for their welfare and safekeeping you really need to take these obligations seriously. I've heard of people who have put anti-freeze in their chicken's drinking water when the cold weather sets in. I really hope this is an urban myth but it saddens me when people rush into chicken keeping without making sure their home is secure and they know what to look out for. So, it's out in the garden to keep a close eye on our hens for me.







Here I am having a break and reading whilst the hens peck around my feet in the vain hope I have left some crumbs for them.






















Bottoms up!





This is Buck Bucky trying to find different ways to get into the nesting box (although the door to the run and the house are both open). She is standing on the greenhouse staging, having already got herself stuck under a pile of logs which she had to be rescued from by me!
She's the top of the pecking order but really, she isn't the brightest of hens!

The Eden project

In 2007 we popped down to visit Luke's dad and managed a second visit to Eden. The glass domes, each hosting a different growing experience are very impressive to view from inside and out - no wonder they used them for a James Bond stunt.
This is where we realised the value of great swaths of the same plant as well as growing huge specimens. Luke discovered two of his favourite ever flowers here (Cerinthes) and now he always grows them, although the chicks often beat him to the Cerinthes and we end up with spindly little plants with their buds pecked out! The photo shows Salvia Patens Blue; it is a beautiful little plant, shown here as one of thousands - oh to have that kind of land and money!

Pigs and bees

Tim met us at the farm he keeps his small stock of pigs on. He raises them for six months only to send them off for slaughter but in the time they do have they really know how to live. Here I say hello to a few of them before they trot off to bath in the wallow.













Tim then takes me down to see the new swarm he is about to rehouse.

Chickens, which came first

Luke makes a hen house!











Note his enthusiasm, he already has the chicken food ready!





We buy four little chicks, they are tiny, they have their immature markings still and they chirrup instead of cluck - very sweet! We buy four; Buck Bucky, Shakira, Coco and Pom-Pom. We've read up on keeping chickens and have researched it all very fully but still feel woefully inadequate. It's instant love on our part though and we spend that first night like new parents, worrying about them and longing for the morning to make sure they got through the night.





Buck Bucky checks herself out.


The girls in their run.

Let me lead you up the garden path..,

Have I taken you for a tour of the garden yet? I don't remember doing that so let me make amends.
It's not a huge garden but has lots of possibilities. Let's start with the front garden. This is how it looked when we first moved in.













The front garden is hardly touched at present; my aim is to turn it over to flowers completely with no grass whatsoever and a windy path cutting through it all for me to access the plants and, of course, the weeds. The garden is elevated, about eye height and is long and narrow, tapering off to a steep embankment down to the road. There are six steps to the front door and I have lots of pots and an old tin bath crammed with violas to provide cheery and instant colour on these steps. I always use pots to brighten up a dull area. It helps me feel like I have done some gardening and gives me time to think up what I actually want to do in that space. As I get used to what the space is used for my original plans invariably change so a stop gap of pots stops me making so many irreversable mistakes.
I cut back an old gnarled pyracantha which may have been planted to stop someone from climbing over the wooden bannister and getting onto the little square of decking directly outside the french windows of our summer drawing room. I've learnt to my cost before that if you don't fully remove a root system of a pyracantha the darn thing will continue to push forward with it's sharp, thick needles just waiting to spike an unsuspecting visitor. They are fantastic plants for many situations but I'm not a fan of them in my own garden. So this was dug up by Luke after a two hour sweat producing struggle that I had with it before admitting defeat.






It is now replaced with a pale blue wisteria which is being grown there to frame the french windows and hang it's racemes like a curtain in the early summer. The colour scheme before was red and yellow (with two leggy forsythias planted too close to the old pyracantha) but is now apricot (three old roses) and blue (2 clematis). I've underplanted with Gentians and upright lobellia for the first year, just to soften the effect. I've also dug up a sad looking shrub and replaced it with an evergreen honeysuckle. It is easy to plant int he summer time when most things look fabulous but we need to keep a thought for how it will look in the deepest winter when we are desperate for some life in the garden. This honesysuckle will provide colour and shape when other things are dormant. At the base of the honeysuckle and at the bottom of the steps down to the garden from the deck is a lavender. All these scented plants should attract insects which may prove irritating if I'm trying to sit peacefully on the deck but it's a good thing to be reminded that we share our gardens with a multitude of life and have no more right to be there than they do. A garden teeming with insects is more interesting than a sterile one with no extra movement of tiny butterfly wings and dragonflies or the buzzing of a bee. On the little square of decking stands an old chimney stack which I top with annuals in a pot. They drape over the sides like a frothy cloud of smoke. A painted wooden chair looks out - it's always nice to have somewhere to sit and enjoy a cup of tea whilst working.

Inspiration from failure.

I've been dipping into Monty and Sarah Don's book, 'The Jewel Garden' and it's really reassuring to read that, at the height of his fame, his garden still was evolving and whilst he was talking about it in it's perfect form the truth was very different. He tells how he gave a talk to the Horticultural Society of New York and embellished the visual images of his garden as he tells here; "The garden I described was rich with a wide range of plants, all in perfect condition, and all flowering exactly when and how we wanted, the succession and combinations dancing and glowing with true jewel-like intensity. It was a garden that I fervently wished to see and that we truly intended to make but alas which bore little resemblance to one that had ever existed - let alone our immature plot back in England". This backfired when the garden editor of America's House & Garden asked to feature this wonderful garden in the magazine and Monty and his wife had to race out and buy lots of plants and plant them up before he arrived.
In my very small way this was duplicated when Luke's Mum asked me about my black and white garden without realising it was the very border we were both looking at. Of course the rogue pink foxglove which cheekily snuck it's way into the monochrome scheme and which I left there just for it's audacity didn't help her work it out. My black elder is pretty dark and the calla lily is true black as are the grasses but I'm probably kidding myself when I think it's a monochrome border. Just you wait till the hollyhocks are out though (unless the sun gets behind the flowers and lights them to a dark brown). Then I should have huge spires of black and white rosettes. Lukcily the leaves are huge so should shield the sunlight and provide an emerald backdrop to these gorgeous showy flowers. If this works (or if it doesn't) I shall show you photos of them in flower. It always makes me a little sad when certain flowers; hollyhocks, giant scabious, etc, burst forth as it is the onset of autumn and then winter and I don't want to be reminded of cold, bleak days with little in the garden. I did begin with 'the bones' of the borders by planting evergreen shrubs first before dressing them up with the showy annuals and perennials. I'll be pleased of these dependable evergreens when most things have been cut down by the first frosts. But for now I can breath deeply, feel the sun warm my shoulders and watch the breeze make my acer branches dance. It truly is a lovely time of the year.

One swallow does not make a summer

This morning I watched the swallows whizzing through the clouds like huge flies against a snowy backdrop. It was wonderful to watch them, dipping, diving, gliding and madly flapping their wings. I'm sure there was some purpose to it all but they looked like they were dancing through the skies just because they were so glad to be alive. Beautiful! Hours later I looked out of the window again to see them still there, this time joined, high above by a lone buzzard; huge against the little fork tailed swallows. Now the sun has broken through and is high in the sky I only see that solitary buzzard, like a shadowy silhouette against the light blue of a summer's day. It makes me glad to be alive.

Pain stops play.

Oh, me poor old back! I swang those hips as I was sieving the stones out of the greenhouse area last week and they aren't hips to be moving around too much so I have seriously put my back out (if there is such a thing as 'putting your back out'). So, yesterday was spent mooching around, doing easy jobs; cleaning the panes of greenhouse glass and diong a small weeding job around the Trail of Tears beans as well as planting up some Nicotiana plants.

Gosh, the ground looks so much better when it's been weeded, much like the lawn always looks considerably better for a quick mow - these are the jobs you can do which result in instant improvements so I always like to do a spot of weeding when everything else seems like a lot of work for no apparent outcome.