Gardens and gardening

I designed my garden by slightly adapting a design in one of Alan Titchmarsh’s books, and it has worked out splendidly. I haven’t got organisation or art and design skills, but I am good at following instructions if they are precise. I did all the work myself, except for the turf laying, so I am pleasantly surprised at how well it looks now, given my lack of gardening skill and experience. 

I didn’t go with many of Titchmarsh’s suggested plants except the trees - crab apple, rowan, beech and laburnum. The borders are filled with various shrubs, roses, cosmos, poppies, lupins and other plants with names I can’t remember. There is a herb garden and a soft summer fruit area. The only thing is that my garden can look rather dead during the winter, so some day I might sort that out.

I love sitting in the garden at this time of the year and listening to the birds and the bees. The honey bees are really making the most of the lavender at the moment, so I love to sit and watch them, or to recline with my eyes shut and listen to the buzzing. It is so very relaxing. 

I've noticed that too, I guess it suits us becuse we can do something meaningful without having to be around loads of people.

I try and leave seed heads and things to give insects somewhere to live and birds seeds to eat. I have some winter flowering plants such as helebore, pansies and some pinks, I try with cyclamen but don't have much success with keeping them. I plant lots of bulbs too. One thing I want to add is a winter flowering clematis, I know lots of people like winter jasmine, but any jasmine gives me a sick headache so I avoid them.

I don’t like jasmine either. I might try the winter flowering clematis, and hopefully it will be as easy to grow as the two summer flowering varieties in bloom at the moment in my garden - they pretty much look after themselves.

The bed I'm currently working on is full of builders rubble too, I actually thought I'd found archaeology ones, so I scrapped all th soil away preoperly and found a brick window arch from when the house was rebuilt years before we came here. Some plants like poor soil, so I've been concentrating on plant them. We also have a soak away going to that bed which is covered by a massive stone, it's always hard find something that will grow there.

Your Scottish garden sounds nice. If I were to have one of those, it would need to be in a tub too as my garden is on top of builders rubble, and prior to the builders, the soil had been clay.

The borders were heavy work to dig out and I thought I would never get them done because I kept coming across breeze blocks and chunks of concrete. I filled them in with compost, sand and soil, and while many plants have thrived, I also had many failures, including some of my favourites such as the foxgloves. I think the spot wasn’t quite right for the foxgloves, so I will try again. 

I don’t particularly like mowing, but I think my grass brings a softness, shape and pleasing order to the otherwise disordered borders. Two years ago I invested in a battery powered mower, and it is much easier to use than the petrol mower, and quite light. 

Your Scottish garden sounds nice. If I were to have one of those, it would need to be in a tub too as my garden is on top of builders rubble, and prior to the builders, the soil had been clay.

The borders were heavy work to dig out and I thought I would never get them done because I kept coming across breeze blocks and chunks of concrete. I filled them in with compost, sand and soil, and while many plants have thrived, I also had many failures, including some of my favourites such as the foxgloves. I think the spot wasn’t quite right for the foxgloves, so I will try again. 

I don’t particularly like mowing, but I think my grass brings a softness, shape and pleasing order to the otherwise disordered borders. Two years ago I invested in a battery powered mower, and it is much easier to use than the petrol mower, and quite light. 

The bed I'm currently working on is full of builders rubble too, I actually thought I'd found archaeology ones, so I scrapped all th soil away preoperly and found a brick window arch from when the house was rebuilt years before we came here. Some plants like poor soil, so I've been concentrating on plant them. We also have a soak away going to that bed which is covered by a massive stone, it's always hard find something that will grow there.