The making of a garden
Both my OH and myself are keen gardeners. My parents enjoyed gardening and when my Dad took early retirement we rented a Head Gardener's Cottage. It came with the full use of the walled garden that had, many years before, supplied the produce for the manor house. My OH's Dad had a large vegetable garden, and his grandad had run a market garden - so we both have gardening in our blood!
We moved into our current house over 20 years ago. It was built in the 1930's but had a large extension added in the 1980's - one of the things that attracted us to the house was the large garden.
As can be seen there was nothing in it apart from a large conifer and lots of fencing and paving!
It did, however, give us a blank canvas to work on.
We initially put in some narrow borders and divided the garden with a trellis and made a vegetable garden. The large grass area was ideal when the children were smaller, providing space for running around, playing football and badminton.
We planted 5 trees, and started buying shrubs,roses, herbaceous plants and planted a wildlife hedge. We read lots of gardening books and were influenced by many gardeners Gertrude Jekyll, Margery Fish, Beth Chatto, Christopher Lloyd, Rosemary Verey, Geoff Hamilton, Sarah Raven, Monty Don. (I did say there were lots!)
As time went on our passion for gardening grew as did the plants and the children, and the amount of space given over to plants grew larger too! We also put in a pond for wildlife and even took over an allotment for a few years with views across to Portland harbour. Then due to ill health and an elderly parent the time available to garden was greatly reduced and we had to give the allotment up and the garden also suffered.
Every year in the garden is different as new plants are introduced or plants moved around. This year will be the first time for many years we will hopefully be able to devote more time to the garden. We have found over the years as the garden matures the gardening changes too and tasks such as pruning the shrubs gets more demanding!
We moved into our current house over 20 years ago. It was built in the 1930's but had a large extension added in the 1980's - one of the things that attracted us to the house was the large garden.
As can be seen there was nothing in it apart from a large conifer and lots of fencing and paving!
It did, however, give us a blank canvas to work on.
We initially put in some narrow borders and divided the garden with a trellis and made a vegetable garden. The large grass area was ideal when the children were smaller, providing space for running around, playing football and badminton.
We planted 5 trees, and started buying shrubs,roses, herbaceous plants and planted a wildlife hedge. We read lots of gardening books and were influenced by many gardeners Gertrude Jekyll, Margery Fish, Beth Chatto, Christopher Lloyd, Rosemary Verey, Geoff Hamilton, Sarah Raven, Monty Don. (I did say there were lots!)
As time went on our passion for gardening grew as did the plants and the children, and the amount of space given over to plants grew larger too! We also put in a pond for wildlife and even took over an allotment for a few years with views across to Portland harbour. Then due to ill health and an elderly parent the time available to garden was greatly reduced and we had to give the allotment up and the garden also suffered.
Every year in the garden is different as new plants are introduced or plants moved around. This year will be the first time for many years we will hopefully be able to devote more time to the garden. We have found over the years as the garden matures the gardening changes too and tasks such as pruning the shrubs gets more demanding!
I will enjoy sharing it with you over the next few months.
Sarah
Love your garden, hopefully a herbaceous bed will be coming in mine. My Uncle had a nursery with lots of large greenhouses and a shop, which my Mum and Dad took over, so gardening in my blood too! Julie xxx
ReplyDeleteHello Sarah,
ReplyDeleteYou have a beautiful lush garden. Thank you for posting some photos. About my roses, I just fed them some E.B. Stone rose food. My first feeding for them is when they start to bud. This year was a early year for them. Last Feed is late november.
Have a wonderful day.
How interesting to see the evolution of your garden. It looks absolutely beautiful in its mature seasons.
ReplyDeleteOurs has run a bit wild in recent years so we have had some help to sort out some pruning this spring, but we are looking forward to more gradual changing and planting as the year moves on.
It's beautiful. Look forward to seeing more of it soon!
ReplyDeleteYou are doing such a fantastic, brilliant job! It all looks very airy and inspite of all the work - one can see that for you it is pure happiness working in it! Looking forward to more pictures over the next few months! Chrsita
ReplyDeleteWhat a fantastic garden - I hope you have a very happy time in it as it begins to warm up. Juliex
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah ... fabulous garden! Just to let you know I've passed on a Blog Award for your lovely blog - pop over to my blog for the details. Well done! Jules x
ReplyDeleteThanks Jules for giving me the award, how wonderful!
DeleteSarah
Love your garden. My garden is nice all year, but spectacular during the summer. I am a teacher and a coach so my garden suffers through the school year. What I love about my garden is that much of it is planted by the birds and the wind. I find flowers blooming unexpectedly. It is just 2 weeks until spring break when I will really get out there and make an effort to prepare for summer. I will be back!
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful to see how it has developed - I love the garden so much, isn't amazing how much pleasure there is to be found in the simplest tasks! Looking forward to seeing Monty tonight!
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely weekend,
Sarah -x-
That's a wonderful garden - makes mine look very shabby!
ReplyDeleteYou have worked very hard and have a beautiful garden,
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful garden!
ReplyDelete