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. 

Primrose memories

When I was growing up I remember  my mother often talked about  a friend she had who was called Marjorie. Marjorie had married a farmer and moved from the north of England to Devon. Devon seemed a long way away, I had never been there, we only ever went to Wales. But the idea of living on a farm in Devon sounded really good to me as a child. My Mum and her friend used to write letters to each other and twice a year my Mum would receive a parcel from Devon which we were always excited about. One parcel always arrived in time for Mum's birthday in October and it was clotted cream. It was a real luxury because you couldn't buy clotted cream in the shops up north then. We also didn't have a refrigerator so we had to eat the clotted cream up as soon as possible before it went off. I don't remember what we had with the cream but it was probably tinned peaches as we wouldn't have been able to buy strawberries in October then like we can now.

The other parcel from Devon would arrive around Mothering Sunday and it was always a box of primroses cut from the wild in the Devon lanes. You can't do that now, but this was the 1950's before the laws about not cutting flowers from the wild came about.

I really loved those primroses with their delicate, little stems and lovely pale yellow petals. But they always looked a bit squashed when we opened the box so we had to get them into water as soon as we could before they died. Mum and I  would get together all the little vases and jugs  we could find around the house and fill them with these gorgeous little flowers. They soon recovered from their travels and they brightened up our shabby little house no end. I still have a little jug of my Mum's which always got filled with primroses. It makes me think of Devon lanes and banks of primroses. Marjorie eventually had to stop sending the primroses as she said she wasn't allowed to cut them anymore.

Mum's little jug filled with little flowers but not primroses as I don't have enough to cut yet

I have been to Devon many times but never in the Spring when the primroses are out, but I see them sometimes up here along the lanes in Lancashire or the Lake District and never fail to think of my Mum and her friend Marjorie when I see them.

Primroses along the road at Whalley in Lancashire

It's only in recent years that I discovered  you can buy native primroses-- primula vulgaris. I planted some in my old garden under the trees. Now we have moved recently and I am trying to create a little woodland patch in our new garden and one of the plants on my wish list was of course primula vulgaris.  My daughter who now lives in our old house said I could dig some up from her garden, they were in need of splitting up and replanting so I didn't have to be told twice. 

They look lovely nestling around some old tree stumps and I'm hoping they will increase in numbers over the next year or two.

Spring has arrived at the allotment

We've not been down to the allotment much recently, partly due to bad weather,  but also because of my ankle injury which meant that when the lane was muddy and the allotment paths slippy it was a bit of an unsafe place for me. But at last Spring arrived and fine weather, so off we went to get some much needed work done.

I was greeted by one of my favourite flowers in bloom, the marsh marigold in the pond. As I took a closer look I noticed that there was no sign of the frog spawn which had been there for a few weeks. I wondered if the rain had washed it away as the pond was pretty full up of water. But no, on closer inspection I could see little tadpoles swimming around happily. Peeping out from under the marsh marigold was a frog, I spotted another one down at the bottom of the pond. The frog was very quiet and still and didn't seem to mind me. 

Another welcome sight was the daffodils bordering the path, the bright lime green euphorbia under the sycamore tree and the tulips flowering in the big tub.

The last time we went to the allotment a few weeks ago, we moved the blueberry bushes from the fruit area where they were a bit overcrowded to another bed where they would have more space. They were looking fine after their move. The mulch you can see in the photo is shredded pine needles. We always shred our Christmas tree branches to keep for the blueberries as they like an acid soil. I have heard that this is a good thing to do.

Looking at the rest of the fruit bed we could see that the fruit frame was falling down, so some work will have to be done on it soon before we need to start netting the fruit against the birds. Richard dismantled the frame and repaired the support for the apple tree.

The rhubarb is growing really well and we should be pulling some of the stalks soon.

I'm a bit late planting the potatoes, I would normally have them done by now. So that was an important job to get done. We started work on preparing the potato containers with compost. I planted the first earlies in six of the potato bags. The variety is Maris Bard. I put compost in the bottom of the bags to about a third of the depth and sprinkled in a bit of bone meal. The bags are quite big so I put four potatoes in each bag. Then topped with more compost. When the potatoes start to grow and the shoots show through the compost I will top up with more compost. The next lot of potatoes to plant will be the second early Charlotte a salad potato.

Another important job was to weed the asparagus bed. I also fed it with some blood, fish and bone. I was pleased to see a few little asparagus spears starting to come through.

The fine weather didn't last long, it started to rain, but at least we got a good number of jobs done.

Plants for free

Having a new garden and lots of borders to plant up can be a bit of a drain on the finances. Trips to the garden centre for a few bags of compost often result in a few plants being added to the order. It's not often that I come away from a garden centre without buying at least one new plant. But there are other ways of acquiring plants. Fellow garden friends are often only too pleased to donate cuttings.  Visits to open gardens are a good source of plants, often at a reasonable price. A packet of seeds can produce many pots of plants.

A lot of the plants for our new garden have come from our old garden which now belongs to our daughter and family. Some of them were brought with us when we moved, but I didn't bring anywhere near as many as I had wanted to. I just didn't have the time with all the other preparations for moving house. Although on moving day when we loaded up the car with plants there looked to be an awful lot of them. Now it's Spring this is a good time to dig up clumps of plants and divide them and my daughter has been happy for me to go round to her garden and do this.

So for a couple of weekends I have been round to her garden with my fork, spade and a variety of plant pots and carrier bags lifting and dividing plants. Spring is the best time of year to do this with most plants. Back home I potted up the plants as there were so many I didn't have time to get them in the ground immediately.

Some of them were big clumps like this sedum which needed splitting up with a couple of forks. I thought I would get two or three plants from it but it split into seven. Some of them were quite small, but a few weeks later had grown much bigger.

The back area of our house now looks like a plant nursery with all these plants lined up waiting to be planted. There were very few plants in our new garden so we have a lot of space to fill in the borders. I can see I will be kept busy for the next week or two planting all this lot up.

Through the garden gate--March

The weather has not been very Spring like in March and I know we are all longing for some warmer days with more sunshine. No more snow please!  We have been working on our new garden whenever we can but we have had so much rain.  We get so disheartened when it rains hard and the bottom beds fill with water, but we can see progress. The spring bulbs which I planted weeks ago have brought some colour to the borders.

        

I have been enjoying the Hellebores which I planted. Some of them are a lovely dark red colour, one of them is called 'Anna's Red'. I bought it because my granddaughter is called Anna and she has red hair. I just had to have it! I łove plants which for different reasons remind me of people I know. I wonder now if I should look out for plants which are named after my other grandchildren?

On my potting bench is a collection of small pots of spring bulbs--tete a tete daffodils, yellow and purple crocus, blue Chionodoxa and Pushkinia. It's a lovely display of colour. I have planted some containers of violas too. They are around the garden in different places-- the garden table, outside the kitchen door.

Under the Weigela in the front garden are some bulbs which in  last month's 'Through the garden gate' blog were covered in snow. They are looking much more cheerful now and I have added some lavender and Heucheras to the front of the border. 

This is a border which is tucked away and can get forgotten, but it does get quite a bit of sun. I cut the Weigela back last year when we moved into our new house to make some planting space underneath. It will be good to have a bit more colour there this year.

I am pleased to say that my ankle is recovering well and I am able to get about the garden more, I can even use the spade and fork now, so as soon as the weather is better I will be doing much more planting in the garden beds.

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

Our new garden project 4--planting up the beds

Gardening experts always say that when you move into a new house not to touch the garden for a year to see what plants are growing and what the soil conditions are etc. We haven't done that with our new garden as the back garden was just lawn. There were no trees or shrubs--nothing. So we were able to get started straight away.

As we continued with our plans for the new garden, I spent time thinking what to plant where. There were problems with the soil as I mentioned in previous blogs. In our last garden we had a lot of shade so I always had to bear that in mind when buying new plants. In this garden there is more sun, still some shady areas and heavy clay soil which retains water. So I have had to think about these conditions when planting. I did a lot of reading up on the best plants to grow in moist conditions and I now have a long list. 

When the seating area and raised beds were completed at the end of the summer last year, I decided it was time to start planting up the beds.  Those raised beds looked so good filled up with soil and the good thing was that they didn't have the problem with the water that some of the other areas of the garden have.  I had brought some plants with me from our old house, I bought plants in plant sales, I had garden gift vouchers given to me for my birthday, I explored all the local garden centres. For months after we moved in there were pots set out in the borders, whilst I decided the best places to plant them all. Much as I wanted to get plants in the garden, I often felt daunted by it all not wanting to make any mistakes. But mistakes don't matter because plants can always be moved if they are in the wrong place.

We wanted to plant some trees for height and structure so the first to be planted was the trees. We bought a Silver birch, a Rowan, an Amelanchier and a Liquidamber. I also had a contorted willow in a pot given to me by a friend a few years ago which I decided to plant in the ground. I was so excited when the trees were delivered. It's lovely to be able to have your own choice of trees instead of being stuck with something which came with the garden and you may not like.  I love silver birch, as well as the lovely white bark they are a really graceful tree, their small leaves creating dappled shade. Rowan has berries in the autumn, so good for the birds.

Amelanchier

The amelanchier has blossom in the spring, berries in the autumn loved by birds and good autumn colour. Liquidamber also has good autumn colour and lovely shaped leaves.

Liquidamber

Once they were all planted I put some of the shrubs in. I had read that Hydrangeas soak up water so I thought that would be a good one for our garden. Other shrubs I planted were Pittosporum for evergreen foliage, Cottinus, Fatsia, Physocarpus, Cornus.

Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight'

Trees and shrubs form the backbone of the garden, providing structure during the winter months. After these the herbaceous planting went in. There were  grasses, some tall ones for the back of the borders, some smaller for the front or middle. Grasses look good in the autumn and winter when other plants have gone over. I like grasses, there are so many different sorts, some of them are so tall they can provide screening just like shrubs can. I was able to bring some from our old garden.

As well as growing plants and shrubs that look good at different times of the year, I like to grow plants which I can cut to bring in the house, some for foliage some for their flowers, so that was another thing to think about when buying plants.

Japanese anenome

Salvia

I set out pots of plants in the borders so I could get an idea if they would look right. This took a lot of imagination. The pots got moved around several times before I finally decided I just had to make a start. Once they were in the ground they looked great and as I said before, if they are in the wrong place I can always move them. Most plants are fairly tolerant and don't mind being messed about.

I planted up the raised beds and the border down the right hand side of the garden with mixed planting--trees, shrubs and flowers. In the bottom border where all the water is I just planted the trees and shrubs for the time being as there is still work to be done down there.

The garden looked so much better with plants in, especially those around the seating area.  Well that's the first lot of planting done, there will be more to add over the year as we do more work to the garden. I want to put some climbers and wall shrubs in along the fences. Months later everything is looking ok and although the cold weather hasn't left us yet, the plants seem to be coping well.