Our new garden project 5--creating a woodland and stumpery

Once the seating area in our new garden was completed, the next phase in our garden project was to do something with the bottom left hand corner of the garden.  This is the bit just below the seating area. We spent quite some time thinking what to do here. The silver birch tree had been planted near to the fence and the rest of the space was just grass. Should we leave it grassed or should we have a planting area?

A bit of digging revealed that right down in the bottom corner was just stones. We had come across this problem when we had done the other side of the garden and had turned that corner into a bird feeding area. I didn't need another bird feeding area, so I decided that I would plant a few shrubs just below the seating area and the silver birch tree and put some logs and tree stumps in the stony corner where it was impossible to plant anything. This would create a little woodland stumpery and wildlife area.  I have seen stumperies when we have visited open gardens and often thought I would like to build one.

        

We had a few tree stumps down at the allotment which we brought back to the garden and arranged in the corner. I obtained another stump from our local builders merchants where we buy a lot of the materials for our garden project. I spotted the stump amongst a pile of logs and asked if it was for sale.  They very kindly said I could have it for free. So that made me very happy.

Over the winter I planted a few shrubs-- a yellow stemmed dogwood, a contorted Hazel a witch hazel and a choiysia.

In the spring I planted crocus, mini daffodils, snowdrops and hellebores. There are some ferns around the tree stumps. In the bottom corner where the stony ground is I had to leave the ferns in pots but I was able to plant others in the ground away from the stones.

In a previous blog post I wrote about bringing plants from my old garden and I had a lovely time planting up the stumpery with foxgloves, aquilegia, pulmonaria, tellima, to name a few. To finish off the soil was covered with a layer of bark chippings which gives a nice woodland look. I am going to put a few stepping stones down to avoid having to keep walking on the soil as it is quite a big bed. 

  

I'm quite pleased with this little garden area, it should look good once the plants are more established and hopefully will attract the wildlife. 

Through the Garden Gate--April

 The weather in April has been a mixture of heavy showers and sunshine. So it's been a case of making the most of those lovely sunny days and getting out into the garden or down the allotment.

We have been really busy, continuing to develop our new garden and I have been enjoying planting up new beds. It's lovely that we are starting to see more colour in the beds now. To think that when we moved into our house last June, the back garden was just grass. What a difference we can see now.

Richard is building a path around the lawn and although it is nowhere near finished yet we can see it is going to look really good and will be much easier for working on the borders.

We have been carefully watching the growth of all the shrubs and trees we planted in the autumn, hoping that they survived the cold weather. They are now all in bud which is a relief. The Amelanchier is the first to put on a show,  it is now full of blossom and is looking lovely.

Early in April I planted up the border at the side of the house, I want plants to tumble over onto the path. I have planted alchemilla mollis and lavender at the front to edge the path and lupins, sedum, campanula, monarda, salvia further back with grasses dotted about in between.

   

        

We love to sit at our garden table in the back garden having a break from our work with a cup of tea and from here we can  see how the borders are developing.

The colour at the moment in the borders is from the bergenia, cowslips, pulmonaria and Brunnera. In my containers there are violas and tulips. I can see buds on the hardy geraniums and alliums. In a week or two they will be bursting into life bringing more colour. There is so much to look forward to. 

I am linking this post to Sarah's monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' blog at Down by the Sea.