A LITTLE CHANGE IN THE FORMAL GARDEN.

Sadly we have had to change the planting in the formal / Italian garden where the roses were placed within the box beds.
Unfortunately now the box is established the Roses were having to fight the box roots for goodness from the soil and the box was winning!
The roses were looking a sorry sight! So changes needed to be made! So we have removed all the roses except the centre standard Rose.
Then after levelling the ground we have now potted up twelve pots containing Dahlia's.Which we have placed three pots in each bay between the box.

Here you can see them placed in amongst the box bays.

A view from the Lych gate into the Formal garden.

The view from the bench back towards the Lych Gate..

A view from the Cloisters, side on.

Six of the Dahlia's are called  Classic Giselle and are pink, you can see one that's started to flower here.These grow quite tall.

The other six are called Dracula and are single red of course! These are much smaller. We had trouble finding Dahlia's that were not too tall, due to the wind that can hit the garden in that spot.So landed up with six of two colours but a big difference in height .

So the pink which are the biggest have been place on the right hand bays when you look form the bench, because the garden is on a hill the garden slopes away on that side and the much smaller red have been placed closer to the Cloisters.
So hopefully these will flower and fill this part of the garden for the summer. In the autumn we will replace these Dahlia's with Tulips for spring colour and over winter the Dahlias in the dry.

We have moved one of each of the four roses from the formal garden into the new bed formed by having to replace the fencing and take out a couple of overgrown trees and bushes.The extra roses have been cut back and potted ready to give away to family and friends.
The roses we moved were Sceptred Isle a lovely pink, Grace a lovely apricot, Young Lycidas a deep red, we did have three Charlotte a deep yellow but only one of these had survived which we have potted up.All are David Austin roses.


*********************************************************************************

WHAT IS FLOWERING NOW

This beautiful pink Jasmine is just starting to flower. Unfortunately it is against an old part of the fencing which will need to be changed in the autumn. I am hoping that we can cut it back and safely move it about six foot over to the left! So hope we do not lose it!.

Here is a close up of the flowers.

In flower now is our neighbours mock orange which has a lovely scent. against it you can see a red rose what was in the garden when we came here.

From this angle you can see on the right another of our Jasmine's that is not yet in flower.

This David Austin rose called the Rambling Rector is in full flower above the shrubs.

 A beautiful and reliable Rose called A Shropshire Lad .

Here we have the lovely rose Blush Nosette which we uprooted and brought with us from our last house.

It always give a fabulous display in the flower garden beside the arched gateway.

The Delphiniums are looking majestic in their blue spires.

In the front garden the pink Valerian at the front is mixing with the red and white Campion and the yellow Daisy and grey and pink lambs tongue to the side, very Christopher Lloyd!!

The gorgeous colour of the rose Lark Ascending .

Paul is very pleased to see that his Ensete Maurelii ( Abyssinian Banana ) is looking nice and healthy and thickening up..

The beautifully scented rose The Lady Emma Hamilton in the island bed in the front garden.

The blooms fade to pink .

Now here Paul and I disagree, Paul says this is the rose Tea Clipper , I say not as Tea Clipper should be a pale  tea colour  hence the name but knowing Paul he is probably right!!

Well today is turning out to be another of sunshine and showers but there are pots to be filled and weeds to be removed, so it's back to work!.

*********************************************************************************

REDESIGNING THE FRONT GARDEN IN 2013

Last year Paul decided he'd had enough of the grass in the front garden. It was very moss ridden up near the front of the house so never looked good.
So between us we set about redesigning it.

When we had first moved in we'd had the drive widened and gravelled and we had also split it from our neighbours by erecting a fence down the centre.

view towards house.

Some paving we had put in to make it easier for window cleaner to get to windows.

So those photo's show the front garden before  we started to change the layout.




So first we put down the membrane to suppress the weeds and kill the grass. We had decided to edge the
borders in black bricks.




So now no grass , the shape was dictated by the existing borders although we did tweak them slightly.



A side view from the drive.



A view front front wall back towards the house.



This is what four tons of pea shingle looks like!In fact we had already at this point emptied the fifth bag onto the membrane and still had these four to go!



At last after a lot of hard work and some help from our next door neighbours the shingle is all in place.



View from side of drive.



View from front wall. We are on a hill so the ground falls away to the right.



A more level view of the front.

The front garden one year on in May.

We have added shrubs over the last year going for the ones with flowers or autumn leaf colour. The banana plant is back out in it's pot now the frosts are past.

The clematis have re appeared to put on a lovely display.

The two Cordylines  are also back out in their pots and making a splash of red. The border beside the drive is filling up.

Paul treated himself to an Agave which now sit's between the Cordylines.

The side nearest the neighbours towards the road. We are very pleased with how this has worked out, some weeding after the winter to the gravel but best of all no grass to mow!.

The front garden this afternoon a very hot sunny day in June.The view from the drive.the next photo's were also taken this afternoon June 2014.

From front wall towards house.

to the right from front wall

Flowers overflowing wall at side of drive.

The geraniums have taking over up by the house under the front window!

Island bed in centre of front garden

looking across Island bed towards the rose Lark Ascending.

The two Cordylines .

Under the front window! The blue pot still awaits planting up!So plenty of colour!


********************************************************************************