A Mistake or an Improvement?
I think we might have made a mistake, a big one! On the sunny side of the garden the border we inherited was overgrown, ramshackle planting with no rhyme or reason. At the rear a very pushy elder tree entangled with a leggy veronica constantly moved in on the other planting. We have never really decided what to do with it. The only photograph I could find of it was the one above with me and the lovely lady, Anthea of Alex Lee Audio who narrates my books (available on Audible.) As you can see it was green and provided privacy but ... that's about it.
Last year (see above) I decided to keep it jungly, and add some colour with Canna and dahlias but again the monster alder continued to elbow everything else out of the way. The fence (I use the term lightly) between us and next door was rotten and collapsing beneath the assault. To add to this, next door are not gardeners and we were besieged by encroaching ivy and bramble from their side. I am not getting any younger and my under gardener is older still and we were fighting a losing battle.
When the undergardener suggested we clear the back of the border, remove as much of the undergrowth as possible and erect a fence where we could grow climbers, I didn't need much persuading. 'We can fill the border with roses and clematis. They will do lovely in the sun along there," he said, and I found myself agreeing.
It was hard work to fell the trees and shrubs, reducing them to a size to be easily bagged and taken to the tip. I refused to remove my lovely big fatsia or the lovely bulbs that grow at the front of the border this time of year. We dug up two quite large phormiums, one is now in a pot for my patio jungle and the other is to be rehomed. I also dug up my canna and dahlia and transplanted them into pots. We also left a leggy fuschia that will soon be trimmed back to encourage it to bush out low down. As soon as I saw the bomb site we were left with, I wanted to cry.
'Can we put it back?' I asked, but under gardener said 'no.'
The fence went up without too much trouble although we had to negotiate around ancient concrete posts that were not the correct distance apart for six foot panels. It is orange and obtrusive just now but I am hoping it will quickly fade. We also encountered a huge amount of slate slabs that we utilised as a dwarf wall between the bed and the fence to prevent the wood from rotting. We found the electric cable that feeds the outside supply and rerouted it close to the back of the fence where I won't be digging and electrocuting myself.
The weather during this time was infuriatingly 'changeable' but I supposed it was just as well as it gave us time to recover between 'work' days. The soil is on the light side and very free draining but we have another ton of mulch/compost on the way and when we planted the roses we dug in plenty of organic matter around the roots. If we have gained anything it is an extra three feet of planting space.
We planted climbing roses, (Yes, I confess I bought some more) Mortimer Sackler and Buff Beauty, Clematis Warszawska Nike and Jingle Bells close to the fence and shrub roses Boscobel and Madrigal toward the centre of the bed. I left some crocosmia Lucifer toward the back and I am 100% certain the yellow loosestrife will return. It looks so bare and awful but I have sown a lot of perrenials this year; penstemon, astrantia, hollyhock as well as half hardy annuals: antirhinum, calendula, stock, cosmos to fill in the gaps.
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