So in that vein, I have dug more beds. The first bed was put alongside the hedge between us and next door. It is 6m long and it looked huge until I stepped back. You can hardly see it because the garden is so big! It is filling out and growing well, but I might make it deeper/wider next year and put MORE THINGS in it. So far it has: hollyhock, clover, campion, sea holly, chives, fennel, ox eye daisy, verbena bon, nasturtium, lemon balm, salvia, fox and cubs, rudbeckia, hibiscus, echidna (echinacea), scabious, and the things that were already there (nettles).
I have decided that I want a bazillion more calendula, since I am now learning how to dry them so I can use them for teas, cooking, baking, and hand salves etc. Guess what you are all getting for a certain festive holiday? Either herbs or calendula hand salve. Yay!
The second bed is the biggest, under the middle apple tree. I haven’t finished it yet as I want to extend it around the left hand side apple tree. Two semi circles around the trees connected by a rectangle bit. It’s huge and sloping and a pain to water, but I want it to be full of life and flowers and wildlifey stuff. This bed has: willow, dogwood, teasel, foxglove, comfrey, poppy, sea holly, cosmos, calendula, ox eye daisy, toadflax, chives, and loads of other things. I made my own seed mix and scattered it enthusiastically and I can’t remember what was in it, but if it works it’ll be GLORIOUS. I think it had a lot of honesty in it.
The third bed is much smaller and I wanted it to be a statement bed. Purposely put in the way so you have to stop and look at it, but also visible from the gate. I made it narrower as compromise but it nestles into the corner of the path but leaves room for mowing either side. Although I have very grand plans to get rid of all the grass around the slabs and make a herby area with camomile and creeping thyme. This bed has: cistus, echinops (globe thistle), lambs ear, verbena bon, sunflower, nicotiana, bleeding heart, borage seed, tagetes seed, and ranunculus.
The slab path was done by both of us. I had laid the slabs onto the grass to get the placement right, David went to dig them in, and then he found two huge slabs buried by 4” of grass. So the little slabs have been bedded in on sand, and then I extended the path the other way towards the fire pit.
The fire pit was fun, I dug four circles out of the lawn. Again a compromise, as I wanted three of them to be (on purpose) in the lawn so that they stood out to force people to admire them, but instead I moved them back towards the hedges, so when I get around to digging this flower bed later in the year or next year, the circles will half be in the flower bed. The tree have funeral pyre sweet pea towers in them, and the fourth (in the “middle” of the lawn *gasp*) has been lined with brown paper and filled with grit so we can stand the fire bowl on without burning the grass.
The funeral pyres were seeded before I put the bamboo canes
in (harvested from the garden last year) and have got: sweet pea (direct sown),
calendula, mixed wildflower, red orach, knapweed… all sorts of stuff. But again
I forget and I don’t write anything down.
The two newer beds flank either side of the path that leads to the fire bowl area. At some point I am going to have arches between them, over the path, with clematis and other climbers over the arches to make a tunnel of flowers. The bigger bed has: cistus, bleeding heart, peony, sunflower, ranunculus, cosmos seed, borage seed, and tagetes seed.
The narrower bed has sunflower, artichoke, peony, tagetes seed, borage seed, and cosmos seed. Both of these beds are also going to get chives and calendula plants, and maybe a lemon balm.
We made an above ground pond as there are too many hoops to jump through to be able to dig one, and the pond lily that has been out of the water for 4 months is growing and putting out new leaves, so I’m well pleased with that.
I have made a couple of raised planters at the side of the house, one at the base of the log store and an L-shaped bed on the other side of the path to frame the grassed area. This space is perfectly sized for my car so I need to leave it open for parking if we need the space. The bed under the log store has clematis, honeysuckle, jasmine, potato vine, ranunculus, lambs ear, and bedding plants (I don’t know what as I don’t really care for “bedding plants”). The herb bed has rosemary, sage, thyme, orange thyme, mint (in a pot), lime balm, and catmint. It isn’t fully finished yet but not far off.
The log stores are being used as my plant nursery as I don’t
really have anywhere to put anything and I kept knocking the pots over when
they were all on the floor. There are sunflowers, pots of cuttings, dahlias,
squashes, more artichokes, and pots of mint up there.
The floor herbs by the front door are all growing really well, and I have been cutting back the lemon balm regularly to get cuttings for drying. I need a shelving unit in the kitchen for all my jars of dried stuff.
I’m very pleased with the huge thyme growing in the basket on the fence. This was a tiny plant when I first had it two years ago – I bought it in the first lockdown – and its thriving. Which I didn’t think it would since the planter is plastic lined so retains water, and thyme doesn’t like to be wet. The strawberries on the garden gate are setting fruit and I have also decided to make some new strawberry planters to put somewhere.
The wild patch at the side of the house where the bins are is growing well too. Red and white campion, heartsease pansy, the buddleia is coming into bud which will make David happy as he wants a huge buddleia, the delphinium (I think) is flowering, and the pulmonaria was all really popular with the hairy footed flower bees that nest in our wall. The blue geum thingy that I salvaged from the garden in Halesowen is loooooooooooooooovely because it isn’t pink like the rest that we have growing along the hedgerow. I might have to dig it up next year to separate it and spread it around a bit.
We have left the edges of the garden to grow long for no-mow May and now we’re/I’m leaving them long. The toads like to hide in this bit and I quite like seeing what is growing. Next year however these strips will be flower beds, so I shall have to designate a new bit for no-mow May 2023. Comfrey grows EVERYWHERE in our garden like a bladdy weed so I’ve been trying to contain that to a couple of areas as I don’t want it all over the garden.
So all in all, the garden is looking super! I am already planning my next few beds, I just need the mental energy to be bothered to dig them. My garden theme for this year is MORE IS MORE. I’m really not bothered about colour combinations or having a white border and red border and a blue border. Nah. Bung it all in together and see what happens. I’m also gardening knowing full well that in winter, everything I’m digging and planting with the exception of the three funeral pyres will be under water, so I need to try and grow things that perhaps don’t mind being under standing water for a couple of weeks at a time.
And there you have it, eight months of the garden in one fab
blog post. Although we’ve been here since September but I didn’t start
gardening until March at the earliest, after the flooding. So three
months of gardening. Not too shabby.
