NOTES FROM AN ENGLISH GARDEN: SCREENING THE VIEW!

A garden is always evolving. Well ours is. Things will have been in place for a few years or much longer but then those made from wood will start to rot or break and it give's you the choice, to either just replace with the same or do a total or part redesign.

That's what happened with a screen of trellis and a plant at the side of the house and back gate.

The trellis was put in place to give us privacy from people walking up to our neighbours front door. We live on a hill and our neighbour on this side is higher than us. We jd planted an akebia against the trellis and it grew like a wild thing soon covering the trellis , up the side of the extension roof and over the wooden gazebo planks. We would have to cut it back each year to stop it filling the guttering and roof.

Now since we'd put the new railing up between the cloisters and the pond garden, the three pieces of stained glass I'd used to semi hide the water butt by the workshop.

These two, the third was below in the middle but removed when the new railings went in. So I suggested that we could use these three pieces of stained glass along with some new trellis to replace the old trellis by the side of the house.

Clearing the trellis and plant

The root ! Took a while to dig out.

Please excuse the mess, this was made while emptying the space that's now a potting shed. But some how it's the only photo I seems to have taken which shows the opening with the trellis still up both sides.

Now what happened was while Paul was sorting out the removal of the old trellis and plant on the left of the photo, I was sitting under the gazebo looking at the complete area. On the right was another trellised section but this had two stained glass windows in, which lion head style detail, under was a piece of diamond shaped trellis used from elsewhere at the time and a piece of extra large trellis to fill the remaining gap.

Now when the area by the gate was opened up, it remined me just how nice it used to be with it all open. We only closed it up on the other side of this part, where the lion head glass windows were in order to hide the side of our neighbours large yellow van and also to give us privacy because we, at that time , had a small low garden shed for the garden tools, lawn mower etc.

But now we'd moved that shed and replaced it with a much taller one that filled the open area from before. So I said to Paul about removing the windows and trellis aon the right and opening up that space. He didn't say no . . . .

So the other side was taken down. Naturally it had been used to store things that were waiting to be used or had been left.

A pile of bricks, waiting to be used for the paving up to the dolls studio, pots that had been used for plants and then those plants put into the garden. The bar b que which will now need a new home !

He framed the two pieces of stained glass from down the end.

Wished I could have kept them somewhere inside. Anyway that could not happen but now I had another two pieces of stained glass I could work with, I suggested to Paul about using one of the lion head pieces with the three from the end.

Did use them this way ? or

I settled on this way, with the smaller window above the lion's head one, which turned out to be a good choice. We intended to use the other lion's head window in a small area of trellis right over the far side of the section, where it was possible to see into ours and our neighbours garden.

We could not just put in the windows and leave a small open gap between the original post and the side of the house. So we fitted another smaller post partway along and used this area for the glass.

Then the other frame of two panels was fitted . We intended at this point to fill the space on the left with either a close fitting small trellis or fencing.

The white window was stripped and everything stained black. A leftover decking board , which had been used under the diamond trellis on the other side was cut down to male two boards to fill the gap below the glass.

So we looked at our wood, trellis etc to find something to fill the area on the left which would finish the screen and complete the privacy. Nothing seemed to work and the fencing strips we had were one piece short to fill the gap ! It was now after six pm , so time to finish for the day

But my little grey cells had been whirling and so I asked Paul if that gap was wide enough to take the other lion head window? He said yes. So I said lets try it there and use the fencing boards to fill beneath and since the space would be smaller we should have enough?

Next day, he stripped the other lions head widow, fitted a bar and