Projects

This page is for pictures and articles about garden design and planting projects I'm working on.

This is the initial design for my new herb garden - previously it was informally planted, but the Alchemilla mollis was taking over...

Rose bushes have now been planted and some of the herbs - including golden feverfew

There are also crocus, allium and jonquil narcissus bulbs under the plants, so hopefully the garden will look gloriously bright in spring.

There were two 2011 projects.  The first, and most exciting, was the opportnuity to help in the building and showing of Reaseheath College's large show garden for RHS Tatton Park.  The theme was "The Secret Garden", it being the centenary of the famous and much-loved children's book of the same title, and the design of our garden was intended to be one corner of the Secret Garden - partly neglected but being gradually restored by the children.  The site began life as a sandpit (the soil at Tatton is almost pure sand), but over the course of just over two weeks was transformed:

Most of the first week and a half was spent laying out the site and on the construction of the garden wall and paths, plus excavating two large planting holes for our specimen trees.



        

Getting the trees on site was quite a feat of civil engineering - getting them to look healthy after their truck journey was a struggle too.

   

 

There was great excitement when the plants finally arrived and planting could begin.  From one day to the next, the garden changed radically.

 

The finished garden looked great and won us a silver medal from the RHS, though we think it would have been higher if all of the judges had understood that parts of the garden were supposed to look neglected and weedy, and the holes in the hosta leaves and snail shells were intentional!

Less illustrious, but just as significant was my first garden design project for someone else - the transformation of one section of my friend Kevin's garden from a bit of a bramble patch to (hopefully) a lovely informal and wildlife-friendly bed of tough but attractive flowering plants.  It was a tough job, but a good confidence booster.

I rather hope to be asked to go back and do regular maintenance, especially while the hedges are regrowing and odd bits of perennial weed growth are likely to pop up in the planting, and to deal with the lawn on the other side of the path, which is in danger of seeding the whole flower patch with dandelions.