Moving to a new house involves the fascinating challenge of adapting/designing a new garden. My plan is to record here the dilemmas, decisions and changes as this new garden develops. The original garden is at the end of this page and updates are now by month with the latest at the top.
September 2025
The front lawn area has taken on a bit of a life of its own. The plan was for lavender and rosemary to create green and silver mounds. However, to cover the bare ground between I added some clover seed and a few other plants came along by themselves including the sunflower, which did better than the ones I planted, some cosmos and two melon plants that even produced some small unripe melons. I now need to remove the clover before it adds too much nitrogen for the lavender. The clover plants will be useful for bare soil produced in October’s project.
August 2025
Every day came a new ripening crop of figs from the much expanded tree in front of the house. Now the bounty but later some judicious pruning will be neccessary
July
The concrete slab under the decking had a small gap running along the full length of a line along the center. Removing the rotten wood allowed enough space for some grit and soil and to plant some creeping thyme. It is taking off very well there, although no one has yet spotted the garden pun.
June 2025
The courtyard garden is developing well, everything filling out and plenty of interest.
The planting includes:
Edgeworthia honey sunshine, mahonia soft caress and Pittisporum as the main structural planting. Agapanthus, Geranium Johnson’s Blue, Digitalis, Cordalis calycosa, Knautia, Scabious Blue Jeans, the creeping Lonecera little honey. For climbers there is Ceanothus yankee point (to potentially replace the blackberry), Clematus cirrhosa Jingle Bells to climb the dead tree and Chaenomeles lemon sorbet on the right hand side of the wall. In the shadiest part there is Pulmonaria Blue Ensign, Meconopsis lingholm, Epimediums: sulphereum, tones turbo, and rubrium and along the wall various ferns.
May
In the general drive to create more planting space I have inserted a herb bed into the gravel area that runs down to the pond. It was a suprise just how sunny this area turned out to be so perfect for herbs. The change involved lifting the membrane from that section inserting a narrow barrier to the gravel edges then adding grit and compost to the soil. Painted the wooden chairs blue to brighten up the little patio area.
April
Started looking at the front lawn area which runs along the drive as another possible area for planting up. Discussed with the neighbour and will start on this when I have time. It is dry and sunny so planning to have mainly lavender with some rosemary and keep it tidily pruned.
March
Unfortunately moving the heavy pots out of the way for the delivery led to a back problem so everything moving more slowly now, especially me!
Began the planting out of the new courtyard garden area. Clay soil with gravel improved with compost and topsoil. It is suprising how a full trolly at the garden centre turns into very little ground covered. Fortunately I have some cuttings coming on in the greenhouse and some cosmos seeds planted to help fill in gaps.
February
January
December
The black decking in the courtyard garden area is slippery and rotting in places so it has to go. This will make possible more planting spaces. Removal of a few sections revealed a central concrete block which might be retained in some form for a patio area. Commissioned a garden renovation company to remove decking from the courtyard area and dig out bamboo by the greenhouse. They will be coming in January so could only tinker with things a bit until that’s done. Moved primroses and a hypericum from the bamboo area (cleaning off the roots carefully to avoid transfering any bamboo). The temptation to buy plants is strong but try to resist until there is a firm plan, but that is very difficult without experiencing all four seasons first. I get why people say you should live with a garden for the first year and then make changes once you know what’s there. I did clear out the overgrown herb area – lots of marjoram taking over – left primroses and bulbs and reduced the bay tree. Also added several hellebores and ferns to the shady area under the Fatsia.
Bought a Hotbin for composting and set it up. The temperature in the bin reached 60 degrees Celsius Christmas day.
November
Measuring, recording and so on in process (scale drawing to follow) but sometimes I felt the need to move on with obvious changes. I thinned out the Fatsia but have come to appreciate it more now that it is flowering and regularly covered with bees. I removed a berberis that was struggling under the fatsia and encroaching on the washing line area. The most dramatic change was cutting back the bamboo in front of the greenhouse. It is Phyllostachys nigra and is spreading towards the house, a useful screen for the woodstore and bins but just too vigorous.
October 10th 2024 moving in day
Th
e removers arrived 15 minutes after me so little time to record the garden prior to our own pots being offloaded from the back of the truck. A few snapshots of the various areas as a starting point before a more indepth audit of what’s here and the feel of the space.
