Over the last few months since we started working on our new garden, I've spent ages pouring over garden magazines and books on garden design. Although we knew some of the features we wanted in the garden, how to put them all together was difficult. The books said make a plan before you do anything else, so we measured the garden and made an outline plan of the shape.
Having assessed the soil and shape of the garden we knew we had a few problem areas. Clay soil, waterlogging and a sloping plot were not going to to be easy to deal with. We thought we could see signs that there had once been borders around the perimeter of the plot because of the change in the grass and weeds. There were also some big bumps on the right hand side, an old rockery maybe?
A few weeks after we had moved in to the house, our daughter Sarah came up to visit for a weekend and was full of enthusiasm for getting started on the garden. So Sarah and our other daughter, Helen set to work digging out a border down the right hand side of the garden. Sarah also drew up a garden design plan. As I still hadn't done a plan of my own, I found this really helpful to form a picture in my mind as to how it could look. The soil on this side of the plot is easier to work as it doesn't have the drainage problems as that on the other side of the garden.
When Sarah had gone home I continued digging but once I reached the bottom end of the plot I encountered stones, lots of them. It was impossible to dig so I left it for a while.
We then started on the bottom of the garden digging out a bed along the fence. The soil here was really bad and filled with water whenever it rained. We bought grit, topsoil and farmyard manure to try to improve the drainage and soil structure.
I had brought a lot of plants from our old garden and I started to set them out along the newly dug out borders. I decided not to plant up yet as I kept changing my mind on where to put them. It did at least make the garden look a bit more colourful.
As Richard started digging along the bottom of the plot he reached that bottom corner with the stony area and we both decided that this was an impossible area to dig and we needed to make it into a feature of some sort. We decided to put some paving slabs down. First the area was levelled then a membrane was put down. This was topped with some gravel, then the paving slabs were put in place. We weren't sure at the time what we would put on this paved corner, but it looked quite good.
It has now become a bird feeding area. We bought a bird table, the bird bath and a few potted plant arrangements have been put in place and it looks quite good. The birds like it. At first we had a couple of magpies, later we spotted blue tits, a couple of sparrows and a blackbird. We now have starlings and a robin. The squirrel likes it too.
Our plans are flexible as we encounter problems, but we are progressing.
