GARDEN PLANNING AND PLANTING

 

The Irises are starting to flower.

Flower garden bed

More Irises have opened up.

Unfortunately, all the names have washed off the labels!

another

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This beauty has black outer petals with the purple inner

Some are ones we put in the year before last and did not flower last year, so it's nice that they are flowering this year. We will need to find our order detail so we can relabel the plants.

All gardens need to evolve over time and so it is with our garden. We have maintenance that needs doing on the raised bed at the end of the garden. The wood we used to hold the soil back has started to rot and the soil is spilling over in places. So, we will need to replace with something longer lasting.

Also, we will need to put in some steps to access the raised bed because we are not getting any younger, so making them now, we make life easier later.

The box in the formal garden has been attacked by box moth caterpillars, so we are treating that, but this has also made me consider that area.

It does look lovely and green but if we need to add pots into the space, it can be heavy work lifting them over the hedging. Plus, we always seem to miss cutting the box hedging back each year.

So, we are considering totally changing that area and removing the box hedging and digging area over then filling with roses, Adding two more standards one each side of the existing one. We could then maybe have a small plinth on each corner with a nice stone pot filled with plants. It would save having to cut the box twice a year and also from lifting pots in and out hedging. Yes, we would have to cut back the roses and dead head but that wouldn't be a chore and if it was well mulched it would hopefully not get too many weeds in.

We built the gazebo style cover over the seating last year and have trained the rose and wisteria to start growing over it.

We could maybe extend this to the other end of the left-hand side finishing at the lychgate? See Ideas still whirling as I type this.

My only concern is that at present it's lovely and green in this space, so it's just an idea...

I will need to get the drawing paper out and start doodling and see what appears!

Either way we will be moving one of the new wisteria's, that is up by the house to the corner on the right of the lychgate and train it to run along the trellis to meet the existing wisteria on the corner of the Cloisters.

We are also in the process of removing the rockery because it's never really worked well where it is, constantly being weeds and also plants seeding themselves and growing wild while the rockery plants vanish plus the dogs deciding to walk over it on occasion! We may put pond here as we do miss having water in the garden, of course no doubt Rufus will want to cool his legs in it! But again, it's still in the planning stage.

It won't all happen this year, although we will need to start on replacing and shoring up the raised garden, but we can make a start on some of the changes in the autumn if we have made a plan.