A busy weekend in the garden and not many pictures to show for it. Mostly tidying up and lifting ready for the winter. It was getting dark by the time we'd finished so there're only these few pictures for now. Maybe add a few more later.



The Aoneums (spelling?) are a bit tender so they're being moved indoors. The large one's getting a bit too big for the conservatory so we're putting it in the summerhouse and will wrap it up as it gets colder. The rest are in the house. As they propogate so readily and grow fast we're not too worried if we lose the big one, although it would be a shame, I suppose.



This Banana was bought as a small plant - maybe 45cm high - at the start of the growing season. It, too, is tender and has been lifted ready to go indoors. Again, being much too large for the house, it's going in the summerhouse where it'll be wrapped and molly-coddled in an atempt to get it through the winter. With the forecast being for a harsh winter we have our fingers crossed that it'll survive. Given that it was really quite expensive, we really don't want to lose this one!


A couple of Viburnum Davidii's. One male, one female, hopefully the right pairing to produce berries next year.

MeAtCadwell

MeAtCadwell
Originally uploaded by Jasper1953.

I've hosted some pictures on www.Flickr.com and needed to test whether I can link to them. I can, so it seems.

As well as gardening, you may gather that I like riding my motorbike; a Honda VFR800fi. I've undertaken a couple of days of track-riding at Cadwell Park with Martin Hopp's rider training group (see links to the side of the page) and have thoroughly enjoyed myself. The photo's that the professional photographer produces are excellent quality but this one, from 2004, is let down by a poor scanner.

I'll post a few more pictures of me and the bike as they're appropriate.

New spaces for plants

From time to time we realise that there are plants in the wrong place, or that they're not providing the effect that we want. Over the weekend we found two places where this is or, should I say, was the case. Along the fence at the rear of the back garden doesn't get as much light as we thought it would . Probably due to the fence facing South West(ish); with the Yew, Photinia and the large variegated shrub behind the Yew adding shade until quite late in the morning. On this fence grew a Forsythia with a Weigela and a Ceonothus in front of it. Neither the Forsythia nor the Ceonothus gave much a show, while the Weigela blended into the background, being partly hidden by other planting in front of it.

This photo, taken at the start of May, gives an idea what the area looked like and shows that the planting wasn't adding anything to the garden's display. So we're in the process of making room for something else to go in there: we're not sure what, though. Current thinking is a Camelia or a Rhodedendron at the back in the semi-shade, with some open light and airy planing in front, using the dark foliage as a backdrop or foil. Of course, there is the problem that whatever we put in there is going to be relatively small ... We're going to have to be patient, I guess

The dark-leaved Weigela was moved into the front garden when we made the new border next to the drive where it is more prominently placed, being in the corner of the border next to the grass path near the front door. This weekend we removed the Forsythia. The Ceonothus we moved also to the front garden, but into the border to the left of the Yucca looking at the front of the house. where we hope it will contrast with the Yellow Lonicera shrub (Sometimes I do wish I'd taken more note of plant names). You can just see them popping their heads into the bottom of this photo.

Which leads onto the space we've made in the front garden. The path to the front of the large Hydrangea and round the Yucca has been reshaped to form an inverted figure 6 when viewed from above (yes, I climbed onto the porch roof to prune the Honeysuckle and spotted it then). This has increased the planting space in the borders next to the neighbour's drive and in front of the house. As well as that, we removed the ancient and past-its-best Hebe, and a tatty Hypericum shrub that were competing for space under the lounge window in front of the house. The Choisya that was also competing for space having already been moved to the new border next to the drive. Once the Cotoneaster Horizontalis was tidied with a little light pruning, the space just needed something to go in there.

We stumbled on just the thing in the garden centre; i'll post what it is when I retrieve the label; while shopping for a Clerodendrom. A Clerodendrom now also resides in the font garden. More photo's to follow when I get a moment to take them and load them up.

The front garden - current state

A few pictures of the front garden.


Sheila's Magnolia (thanks Sheila) newly planted
Janet's since added more plants to the border. I'll post a picture soon.


New borders are to either side of the grass path


She's watching, y'know - give her a wave ;-)



A mix of old and new...

Where we are now...

Here are a few pictures to show where we are with the back garden now...

Hint: Click on pictures to enlarge. To return to this page, click on "Back", on your toolbar.



The view from the conservatory to the summer house


The arbor from the bog garden


The summer house from te patio



The exotic border (1) Oh, and the cat's name is Squeak.


The patio (and the exotic border)


The exotic border (2)

A bit of background

Work In Progress.

The first photo of the garden using the digital camera: Christmas 2003

You'll see the Photinia we planted, the new grass path up to behind the Yew (there was a conifer there), and the start of the "Exotic" border.

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• 
  We bought the house about three and a half year's ago. Unfortunately we have no digital pictures of the garden at that time. However, to give an idea where we started from, here's some background information.
  
  The house was built around 1970, and the neighbours have told us that the original owners were keen gardeners. This is borne out by the structure given by the mature plants. Unfortunately, when they moved out, it seems that they removed many of the more desirable plants (or, more likely, those that they could relocate).
  
  The house was then owned by the people we bought the house off and they had no interest in gardening, so the garden wasn't well maintained (in their defence, though, they appear to have made a good job of modernising the house).
  
  So, for the back garden, (approximately 30 feet deep by 50 feet wide) we inherited some mature plants near the boundaries; in the photographs you'll spot the Golden Yew, a couple of tall conifers, a fastigate (crab?) apple, cherry tree, Garrya Elliptica, and a large Viburnum (you'll also notice that I'm not a plantsman and can't spell the names properly - Janet's the clever one who can remember the names!!!); and a few smaller odds and sods tucked away in various states of neglect. Oh, and a tiny little pond, a shed that we like to call the "summer house" and a greenhouse.
  
  The order of progress from then was (as I recall)...
  
  Clear the back border - inspect what we had. What we had was a border of ground elder ... Oh, and a pond (yes, I know I mentioned that earlier, but it wasn't really apparent until we cleared the back border).
  
  First job: Dig and riddle the back border to remove the ground elder. we dug to about ten, maybe twelve inches deep, removing plants and untangling the ground-elder roots as we went . Fortunately this was early in the year so most of the plants hadn't started into full growth. we added some well-rotted horse manure (dug from the heap at the stables at Cringleford: Yuck) re-arranged the plants and replanted them. A large Photinia was planted in this border to block the clear line of site between our kitchen and the neighbour's kitchen windows.
  
  Next job: Hide the awful crazy paving in front of the summer house. Many happy hours measuring, designing and discussing options resulted in the choice of decking laid over the top for speed and ease of construction, and to provide us with a place to sit and eat. Gina offered to paint the decking and promptly got stuck in, (good on-yer lass...).
  
  And: The greenhouse, in the far right corner, gave way to make a planting area and a Gleditsia and an Acer "Bloodgood" (?) planted there with underplanting using some of the oddments remaining from the back border.
  
  Now it all gets blurred, so, the rest in no particular order.
  
  A patio with a rill running into a (small; 6' x 3') pond replaced the new border where the greenhouse was.
  A bog-garden created next to the pond.
  The border next to the house extended and re-constructed.
  The corner between the conservatory and the back of the house has been planted with shade-loving plants (including a tree-fern). We cal this our "woodland" border
  New steps down from the conservatory to the garden and the path extended three feet.
  A slate shale path running along two sides of the garden under a new arbor (that's a bit of a pretentious description, but it'll do).
  An "Exotic" border - well, it's got a couple of banana trees a Melianthus Major, some gingers, a tender Euphorbia (I really should learn the names of these things ...), a Butia Capitata (I think) and a Hibiscus as permanent planting with various other tender plants like Cannas and Dahlias adding some substance.
  The last addition is a border near the conservatory which hasn't got a name yet and has yet to develop a personality (oh, look, there I go again .. .pretentious, moi?) so will remain as "the border by the arbor".
  
  I'll post pictures of the varous parts with a bit of description as I go.

A gentle introduction

No, that's not our garden. that's a view across the valley from Snowshill Manor. However, it serves as an ice-breaker and gives an idea of our tastes in scenery and gardening.


If you enjoy gardening, we hope that you enjoy the rest of this blog!