|
Post by tory on Feb 15, 2021 8:12:24 GMT
This is our humble garden, circa July 2019. The table in the foreground is now where the Honeysuckle is, as my wife hosted some dinners over the summer and it was better for it there. We've placed lots of pots everywhere - as you can see, there's no lawn. The aforementioned honeysuckle has sadly died over the winter, which is frustrating. Neighbour's garden on the right grows lots of buddleia, which provides a nice natural barrier. Off picture behind, we have hydrangeas and a jasmine plant that is now arcing over the doorway to the kitchen. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by Crunchy Col on Feb 15, 2021 10:29:01 GMT
RED WEDGE on the mug there I see
Lissitzky, is it?
|
|
|
Post by tory on Feb 15, 2021 10:59:00 GMT
|
|
rayge
Administrator
Invisible
Posts: 8,746
|
Post by rayge on Feb 15, 2021 14:59:56 GMT
I was 41 years old before I lived anywhere with a garden. At the Mansions, I had some spectacular house plants, but no access to outside space until I moved in with Chip to a house in Oldland Common, south-east Bristol. Chip was a confirmed gardener, like her mother and grandmother, and I pretty much left her to it, although the idea of wildlife gardening and an organic approach took hold with me and I started to get interested: although I still left the plantwork to her, I was into building, small-scale landscaping (it was a small garden), digging ponds, making paths, building beds, making fancy bird-tables, that sort of thing. We lived there for 15 years. During that time Chip became increasingly ill with ME, so I took over a lot of the digging and planting, at her direction.
After that, we moved to a village called Kenn in the North Somerset Levels, where, because of a covenant on a land deal our landlords had made, more than three-quarters of the garden was restricted to 'agricutural use', which meant that we were only allowed to grow crops or native plants. This wasn't a problem, really. I planted wild flowers in the grass, a native hedge along one side of the property, and dug a fairly large pond and used a pile of rubble in one corner of the garden to build a low drystone wall, complete with nooks and crannies for various creatures to find a home in. I was still basically Lutyens to her Gertrude Jekyll, but I learned a lot about plants and planting - could not help it and got used to enjoying the simple pleasures of delving, planting, pruning and so on.
In 2010 we moved to Devon, where we had a really large sloping plot covered in grass virtually in the countryside. I immediately started digging ponds and beds, as Chip was still sick: and then the following year she was diagnosed with a terminal cancer and I threw myself into transforming the place as best I could: when she felt well, she enjoyed doing planting and dead-heading, and basically just sitting by the pond, lulled by the thrum of insects and the extraordinary variety of birds that came in from the wild wooland scrub over the fence to use the feeders and the other facilities. Then she died, and I just carried on: not so much for the results, as for the process, the way I could lose myself and my grief in managing the rhythms of nature, loving the connections to the natural world and to human history that came with it, as well as the sheer sensual joy I found in the colours, variety, textures and scents of plants and their cycles, as well as the opportunity to be creative and to take photographs. I started to identify as a gardener for the first time.
Ms Thang and I bought a house in Taunton, Somerset, at the beginning of 2019, although we did not manage to move in until August. The garden was bigger than the one at Oldland Common, but much smaller than the others I had been involved in, and was almost entirely covered in paving and coarse long grass set with perennial weeds. The site made it unsuited for wildlife gardening, so I had to think again. Here's a rather flattering picture of it from the week we bought it. I'll get into what happened in later posts.
|
|
wobblie
god
Just a prick out to make a name for himself.
Posts: 1,230
|
Post by wobblie on Feb 15, 2021 15:56:19 GMT
I was going to suggest you set up an indoor grow room to help with your troubles, but with neighbors that close - fuggetaboutit.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2021 16:39:14 GMT
I'll be interested to see what Ray did. I'd probably dig two large borders along the fences and go for a cottage garden approach, but I reckon Ray's come up with something more imaginative...
|
|
wobblie
god
Just a prick out to make a name for himself.
Posts: 1,230
|
Post by wobblie on Feb 18, 2021 14:59:51 GMT
Last year I planted a couple varieties of Blueberries. Early Season: Brightwell, & Mid-Season: Tifblue In a few weeks I'm going to plant a late season variety. Either: Centurion, DeSoto, Ochlockonee, Onslow or Yadkin. Leaning towards the Ochlockonee for the name alone, but I need to chat with my guy at my favorite local nursery Petals from the Past. They specialize in antique roses, but have tons of other stuff as well. All high quality, and a lot of natives. This place has helped me tremendously in the past 20yrs: petalsfromthepast.com/I wish I could get raspberries to grow here.
|
|
wobblie
god
Just a prick out to make a name for himself.
Posts: 1,230
|
Post by wobblie on Feb 19, 2021 21:34:49 GMT
My Lenten roses are blooming, spring is near. They don't look as good as usual, though. Considering cutting them back so they re-bloom when it warms up a bit. Still nice to see some color come to life.
|
|
wobblie
god
Just a prick out to make a name for himself.
Posts: 1,230
|
Post by wobblie on Feb 22, 2021 18:02:37 GMT
Just did my first planting of the year - transplanted some daffodils. Not exactly Master Gardener calibre stuff, but it sure felt good.
|
|
rayge
Administrator
Invisible
Posts: 8,746
|
Post by rayge on Mar 2, 2021 15:36:23 GMT
I'll be interested to see what Ray did. I'd probably dig two large borders along the fences and go for a cottage garden approach, but I reckon Ray's come up with something more imaginative... Well, what you can't actually see in the photos I posted, G, is that the grass is all couch and perennial weeds, while there are a load of raspberries along the west fence (left in the pic posted). Plus, all the gardens that I made with Chip were wildlife orientated, which means getting a decent pond in (there was a preformed fibre-glass one near the house but it was a wretched thing, scruffy, impractical as far as plants were concerned, and obviously leaky as it would never fill: despite this, though, it was attracting spawny frogs, so I had to let it go for at least the summer to give the tadders a chance) and planting up lots of bee-friendly plants (nectar-rich, and singles rather than doubles). Plus I was intending to move a whole load of mature plants - shrubs and small trees included) up from Devon. At the South end of the garden, which backs on to Taunton School, there was a rubbish metal shed on a concrete base, and a rickety fence covered with Canary ivy, and the whole end was shaded out by a couple of sycamores in the school grounds. The first thing to do was to attempt to kill off all the grass with membranes in the hope of sorting out some beds the following year (previous owners had done no cultivating in 19 years, or, if they had, had long abandoned it to scrub, although I would later find there was the remains of a garden buried underneath it all. In the pic below, taken in May. I'd just demolished the shed. The rubbish pond is seen bottom left. Looking south, May The next thing to do was make use of all the wood from the fitted shelves and cupboards we were ripping out to make some temporary raised beds to plant some dahlias in, as well as some bought-in bedding annuals for a bit of colour (the plants from Devon would not be moved until the end of July)
from back bedroom room, June
Raised beds, cleared shed, June.
The three butler sinks in this pic had been left behind by the previous wankers. The reason there are so many bricks lying about is that I had dismantled a barbecue built by the pond. We're both vegetarians, after all.
Right at the back, up against the fence, there was a high mound that I could not membrane out. Once I took off the couch, cuckoo pint and other crap that was covering it, I discovered that it basically full of rubble and sycamore roots, some as big as my arm, that I spent days removing.
concreted corner and mound of earth, June Raised bed planted up July
Moving the plants from Devon required a fairly large truck and a couple of guys. Here's just a few of them lined up and waiting to go at the end of July.
Plants waiting to go, July
And here's the new garden, complete with a further raised bed, waiting for them to arrive. As you can see, the raspberries are going gang-busters, and the pond is still a piece of shit.
Awaiting Arrival
And these pics were taken about half an hour after the one above
Moved in, 29/7/19
To be continued...
|
|
|
Post by Half Machine Lipschitz on Mar 2, 2021 15:39:27 GMT
Looks fantastic Ray!
|
|
rayge
Administrator
Invisible
Posts: 8,746
|
Post by rayge on May 10, 2021 18:08:24 GMT
I've clung for ages to the idea of doing the development of the garden as a series with a long reveal: I still might, but the Great Kablooey is almost upon us, despite the lateness off the spring, so that will have to wait. In the meantime, hot off the Lumix, this, unedited and uncensored, is what it looks like now, or, at least, an hour ago.
|
|
rayge
Administrator
Invisible
Posts: 8,746
|
Post by rayge on May 31, 2021 12:21:15 GMT
|
|
rayge
Administrator
Invisible
Posts: 8,746
|
Post by rayge on Jul 22, 2021 12:37:38 GMT
Cropped this morning
|
|
|
Post by souphound on Jul 22, 2021 16:27:06 GMT
You're kidding. That's wonderful.
And I have trouble keeping bloody English ivy alive. Forget about anything edible. I'm immensely jealous.
|
|