Saturday 14 May 2011

New to me garden

We have just moved and taken over a farmhouse with a reasonable sized garden.

The thing about a new garden is that it is just so exciting because you never know what is going to appear next. I suppose it helps that I'm not sure what anything is until it flowers and then I often have to look it up in a book. I also keep discovering hidden treasures. I was weeding the other day and came across the most gorgeous purple rose hidden behind a huge shrub. In the front a clematis suddenly burst to life from under a load of periwinkle and produced the most amazing flowers.

Surprise clematis - I'd love to know what it is?
There are lots of shrubs and 3 main mixed herbaceous borders. There is an overgrown pond with a willow tree hanging over it, a fair amount of lawn, a patio and a rose garden that I thought was small until I weeded it, whereupon it trebled in size ;-) There are lots of roses everywhere and clematis too. Sadly no vegetable patch but last year I grew all my veg in containers and so this year I am going to try a raised bed and see how I get on. We haven't built this yet. There is also a rough copse type area where I would like to keep some chickens but it will need fencing and this will have to wait at least until we have finished unpacking!
So lots to do. We are tenants here so we won't be spending lots of money on the garden or doing any major work. The borders all have some quite large gaps so I hope to be able to propagate some plants to fill these in. Other than that I will be learning as much as I can from this garden. Restoring rather than altering it.

2 comments:

  1. The Clematis looks lovely.Your garden sounds lovely.It is better to leave it a bit to see what is actually growing there.Our garden had some woody shrubs,alawn, and an awful kids play thing with slides and swing.It has taken us a year to clean the rubbish up, make a pond, and build concrete bases for the greenhouse, and water butts.I would love to keep chickens.Thats one of my wishes.
    I hope that the new garden can inspire you, and give you hours of pleasure either doing it, or sitting on the patio admiring it.

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  2. My first comment how exciting! I feel like I should send you a prize. Would you like a blow-up hot tub? Just kidding, I will make sure your blog is on my links though!

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