It’s a while since I’ve had a meander round the garden, mainly because it’s been more reminiscent of a building site…but I finally think I’m winning!

In our quest to future proof our house and garden, I decided the top part of the garden needed a rethink, both to make it lower maintenance and also safer for me to work in. Beautiful as it was, it was just too much work for us, especially to also have time to enjoy it. I worked out a design that managed to keep all my favourite shrubs in situ, so things like the standard rose, eunonymous elata and the acer have not been touched.

We got a landscape gardener in to carry out the hard landscaping, so we’ve taken up the log-roll edging and replaced it with stone, making the beds a bit smaller at the same time, re-working the left hand side of the garden and the pond area.

Late winter was theoretically a good time to do the hard landscaping as I could move all the plants I wanted to keep during their dormant stage, unfortunately we also got snow, hard frosts, ice…so my plants were out for probably a couple of months, but I think most of them look like they have survived. It hasn’t helped having the kitchen and bathroom redone at the same time!!

Once the hard landscaping was done we had a ton of top soil and a ton of compost delivered to help top up the new beds, all of which needed carrying up our steep drive and up the garden, my OH was a star at moving it all! I’ve rotavated most of the beds and recently been replanting everything, together with a few new plants!

Today I’ve been out in the garden most of the day, I’ve got to the stage where I’m just putting plants in anywhere as I got a bit overwhelmed with it all, I can’t see the bigger picture at the moment and imagine what it will all look like in the summer. It doesn’t help that I’m struggling to identify some of the perennials as they haven’t started to put out any spring growth yet, so I’m sure there will be lots to move over the coming months.

This morning I was mainly working in the raised bed by the patio, another area I’d cleared to put flowering shrubs in, I’ve planted a hardy fuchsia, an azalea and a cistus (rock rose) with a few perennials in spots I can reach without climbing on the bed. I’ve probably planted them a little close together but I’ll see what it looks like in the summer.

On a positive note, there’s lots of buds on my magnolia stellata, so that should look good in a couple of weeks time.

To give you a better idea of the changes, here’s a photo from April 2023…

…and this is now;

We’ve chairs and table to get yet but I think it will work. I love the trellis, it’s high and sturdy enough to stop me falling over the edge but it’s not visually overpowering. Hopefully as the spring growth starts to appear it will look a bit more like a garden! Watch this space as they say!