May 20, 2010

Modern Cottage Garden

Posted by Barhi under Gardeners Diary | Tags: , , , |
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When people ask me the style of my garden, I say that is a modern cottage garden – so, what do I mean by that?

Well, I embrace the principles of cottage gardening, as I see them. 

  • I love the idea of having a garden overflowing with plants.  
  • Apart from the pond area, which has a totally different feel, the garden is not formal at all. 
  • There are no straight lines, everything is in curves from the paths to the pergola and the patio.  Those decisions created the flowing borders, sometimes narrower and sometimes broader.  There is a meandering feel to the garden. 
  • The materials are all traditional from the stone and slate paths to the wooden garden furniture. 

There is no need for a time consuming lawn, this is a garden for someone who has a living to earn and wants somewhere peaceful to enjoy in the few hours that one gets to one’s self. 

We do have an area of space by the house, which provides the breathing space that most people get from a lawn.  I hate to call it a patio, but that is the best word to describe what I prefer to think of as a piece of art made from slate.   As well as providing a simple space, it is designed to be large enough for a puppy play pen.  It also looks even more lovely when it has rained as the slate seems to come alive when wet.

I hope that it is not too obvious when one walks around the garden, but all of this was planned – the garden didn’t just simply appear out of the ground.  There was a great deal of forethought as to how to make the best use of the space available and how to take one on a journey through the garden.

Like most cottage gardens, mine is one that we work in too.  My husband loves to BBQ and so that is catered for in the working area by the side of the house, along with the tomatoes and  plants waiting to go in the ground, as well as our compost bin. 

So, where are the “modern” elements?  Firstly, I have a small garden which has to work for me all year, providing some sort of interest throughout the months.  So rather than totally focusing on plants that are at their peak in mid summer, I have plants that come to their best at different times of the year.  Rather than the garden blooming in a crescendo and then falling away, I like to have an ongoing wave of plants coming to their best at different times.  That tends to mean that  the predominant colour in my garden is green, in oh so many shades and leaf shapes, with certain plants in different areas of the garden which catch the eye at different times.

I also enjoy a much wider plant variety that was available to our ancestors.  I happily mix ostespermums from South Africa in with the more common cottage garden plants such as aquilegias or geraniums.  I have magnolias and other shrubs that would have been rather out of the price bracket of our forebears.  I also can afford to buy plants rather than having to grow everything from seed, which is a good job as I don’t have much success with seeds.

The one way in which I don’t follow the cottage garden planting bible is that I don’t grow food crops in the garden – apart from a few herbs in a pot.  Maybe we are much more fastidious these days, but I would rather that things that I eat had not been too close to where my dogs might have relieved themselves.

I am certainly not averse to adding a few architectural elements to the garden, in the right places.  In the middle of one of the borders, peering out from the planting that surrounds it,  is a steel column  with water flowing down its sides.  It was never intended to be a bird drinking fountain, but the local population has decided that it makes a lovely source for fresh water. 

My Lythrum (purple loostrife) grows to six feet plus in our clay soil, much taller that it is meant to.  To ensure that it does not totally soak us when we walk past after rain, we tie it in to four tall black poles, made for me by a blacksmith.  Before the lythrum grows to its full height each year, the poles give height to an area which mostly has herbaceous perennials and so could look a little bland without them.

PS All these pictures were taken this week, so it gives you an idea of what the garden is looking like today – how is yours doing?

 

September 23, 2009

New Project

Posted by Barhi under Debbie's Garden | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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I was going to start this by saying that I started a new project today, but actually it started months ago.  I was talking at our breed club AGM with a friend and we started talking about gardening.  She has a large garden and wants to turn it into a garden.  If that sounds stupid, bear with me.  

She has a large amount of land outside the house.   It is currently mostly laid to grass with a few plants around the border and a couple of trees – it is the typical blank canvas.  Whilst she is at ease with vegetables and fruit (her polytunnels are outside the garden area), gardens are a little more of a challenge to her, particularly taking into account the needs of the dogs and family.

The next stage in the journey was that she asked me to write an article for the club newsletter.  The thing that most resonated with her about this was the idea that not only were there the human routes through the garden, but that the dogs too had their own routes that had to be considered.

A few months have passed by and she recently contacted me for help in the next phase of the project.  She wanted some help in turning the garden into a garden.  I am not a professional gardener but I was intrigued by the prospect of working with her on this. 

It will be a very unconventional situation.  Despite the fact that we meet at canine events, we live many miles from each other, so photos, email and phone conversations will be the methods of communication.  I won’t be giving her a design to work to, but what we will do is discuss her issues and I’ll make some suggestions to help her on the way.  It will be totally her garden, I will just ask the questions to help her make the decisions that are right for her.

With Debbie’s agreement, I will document the process in this blog.  Hopefully it will provide some ideas to others.

 

August 27, 2009

My compost bin is full

Posted by Barhi under Gardeners Diary | Tags: , , , , , , |
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I like it when my compost bin is full – it feels like the garden’s way of telling me that it has had enough cutting back for a while.

I used to have two wooden compost bins but found it took so long to turn my green waste into compost. This was basically because it was just too much work to continually empty it to turn it. I would think over the seven years that I had the bins, I got about a bag’s worth of compost out of them. So when the wood finally rotted away, I had a decision to make.

My inital thought was to pay for the green waste bags that the council supply. It just seemed the easy solution. All we had to do was remember to put the bags out for collection once every two weeks. Fortunatley we live in a cul-de-sac and the lorry always came at lunch time. On a number of occassions, we suddenly remembered what day it was when we saw the lorry pass by as we ate our lunch. There was then a mad dash to put the bag out before the lorry had time to turn around and come past again.

I used the green bags for a couple of years, even investing in a second bag as I had so much to come out of the garden, especially at peak periods such as the end of summer. But all the while I did this, the thought that I was paying to throw away something valuable just niggled and niggled at me. I suppose part of the problem was knowing (from my perspective) how much hard work composting was.

Eventually, earlier this year, I decided to invest in a tumbling composter. Turning was going to be easy :). They promised you could make compost in two weeks (in ideal cirumstances). Well, I’m not in a position to hold enough material to always empty it and then fill it again, but I could manage to make sure that everything that goes into it has been through my shredder and turning it is a lovely quick job – just six revolutions a day – well, every day I remember. I have already had bags of compost out of it. It can be a bit of a pain sieving out the bits that haven’t composted enough yet, but a lot of that is because initially I wasn’t strict enough with myself about ensuring that everything had been through the shredder. I have learnt my lesson.

I really enjoy the shredding part of the job. It is strangely satisfying to see a huge mound of green waste turn into a much smaller mound of shreddings. The other thing is that I am constantly amazed by the dogs when I shred. The shredder lives in the garage and some time ago we decided to teach the dogs that they couldn’t come into the garage because there are tools and chemicals in there that could be dangerous to them. So now the dogs stay at the open door of the garage watching me work and waiting for me to come out and play with them.

On one of my journeys between the shredder and compost bin tonight, I found that Ruby had brought a toy outside. Normally she is very good and understands that her toys live inside, but today the ragger was obviously in need of a trip out doors. When I asked her to pick it up, she showed what a good gundog she is and immediately did so. She took it indoors as asked, but then wanted to come out again with it still in her mouth. She thought I wanted her rather than the toy inside. Thankfully after me removing the toy from her mouth a couple of times and gently laying it on the floor and inviting her outside she eventually got the message and was parted from her toy – until we all came indoors again.

Now, all I have to do is wait for a couple of weeks and then I will have some more compost and the process can start all over again :).

 

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