Budding Garden Designer

[Paul Narramore]

A new friend of mine who lives in the village has asked for help in sorting out his back garden. He lives in a Victorian terraced house with a very small rear garden, a converted outside privvy and a rear gate leading to a back alley joining the rear gardens of all of the terraced houses. I don't know the dimensions of the garden but it probably measures 5yds x 7yds. Chris stripped all of the weeds and grass off a while ago so we have a blank canvas. The 'Bush' pub just over the road has a large free supply of old bricks too. Chris wants an easy, labour saving garden and really wants somewhere to sit out on sunny days on the tiny patio. At last, a whole (yet small) garden to design. I'll take photos so you can see what is happening. :D

[Dilys]

How exciting - look forward to the pics. And starting small is good.
Dilys

[Paul Narramore]

Well Dilys, whilst I've been gardening for goodness knows for how long, I've never before had the opportunity to design and create a garden from a blank canvas. Fortunately the garden measures (from memory) 12'6" x 25' but actually it's a little more difficult designing a small garden than a medium one. I have to be careful that we don't plant anything which will overwhelm the garden. Fortunately Chris is happy for me to experiment and, like me, loves jungly gardens, no grass, and a place he can sit with a glass of wine to enjoy rather than labour over. He has been given nearly 200 old bricks from the pub over the road so we intend to build a serpentine path from the house to the back gate. He will have to splash out a bit on plants but I'm thinking along the lines of a climbing rose or two along the fences, a New Zealand Flax, bamboo, potentillas and so on. I and some of his friends have cuttings and offcuts of plants so we can get the garden looking reasonable quite quickly, but it will really come into it's own next spring. When we've got things sort out, I'll place a plan on here and take some before/after pictures too.

[Paul Narramore]

Chris and I finally got started on his garden yesterday and working in a tiny garden like his, it's easy to get in each others way. At least twice he trod on newly cemented paving slabs in spite of being repeatedly warned and came perilously close at other times. Chris is a bit of a fusspot who keeps coming up with different ideas. My initial design was a curvy brick path down the middle is now in the bin. Chris decided that he wanted a larger patio as he felt guests would fall off the smaller one into the flower beds. Access to the tiny, terraced back garden is via a narrow and congested alleyway so I decided to dry mix the concrete mixture in my garden, 1.5miles away, then load it into big bags, transport to a car park near Chris's, drag the sacks to his back garden where I'd mix it by hand ready to lay the paving slabs. In the mean time, whilst digging around, he'd discovered two big concrete lintels sunk into the ground. These run down the lefthand side of the garden and would be difficult to remove, so the curved brick path is no more, and we'll use the concrete 'lintels' to make a straight path down the side alongside the adjoining fence. We then decided on the largest circular bed which will fit into the garden, about 10ft in diameter. We popped down to Wickes to buy some lengths of circular pole edging only to discover it's bloomin' expensive. £140 to edge a 10ft dia circular bed, so we plumped for much cheaper and less attractive D-section edging. Next step is to lay a sweeping brick path, erect a 6ft trellis panel to disguise the rear gate, double dig the circular bed, then we can get stuck in to choosing drought tolerance plants to plant in this bed which get's sun all day long. He's off watching county cricket on Friday so maybe I'll lay the brick path whilst he's away, that way there'll be no frayed tempers.

[Miranda]

It sounds fascinating, Paul. I'd love to see some photos - have you got some?

I'm also working on someone's garden - have the challenge of a steeply sloped area which currently holds some shrubs and perennials and is completely overgrown with meadow grass. Am planning to level part of it to make a sitting place, make a circular bed around one large shrub, remove and replant the other plants elsewhere and turf the remaining space. It's for a retired couple who are finding that the garden is getting a bit too much for their creaking joints.

[Paul Narramore]

It is interesting Miranda although we've just being doing the landscaping so far. As you know it's only a 12ft6in x 24ft garden so hardly room to swing a cat. One third is taken up with a patio (we slightly extended the existing one), some rough concrete covers the bottom quarter around the brick loo (now a shed), so we created a circular bed on the middle using rows of D-section wooden posts. Today I lay a brick path down one side (My plans for a curved path went out of the window when we discovered some large concrete section just under the soil level. Things have been difficult because my friend is a bit of a fusspot and keeps coming up with alternative ideas, and I get a bit precious as I can foresee the difficulties ahead if we follow his ideas. Standing on paving slabs which hadn't set didn't help especially as I had repeatedly asked him to be careful. I could never really work as part of a team and like to be left alone to get on with things. Still, all the hard work is now completed and we must now decide on the planting. It's a south facing garden which get's the sun all day long, and he like grasses and easy to maintain shrubs which need little effort.

I didn't take any photos as we just has a rectangle of bare soil to start with, but I'll take some once we get some plants in. At least it get's me away from painting the main bedroom.

[Paul Narramore]

Well Chris and I went out this afternoon to my favourite nursery to buy the first plants for his tiny garden (10ft circular bed) and these are what we chose -

Fargesia nitida (£15 but divided nicely into three clumps)

Paeonia 'Primavere' - a yellow peony

Campanula takesiniana - white paeony with maroon spots (x3)

Monarda 'Cambridge Scarlet' - lovely maroon flowers ansd scented (x3)

Acanthus mollis

Still lots of spaces to fill but various plants being donated.:)

[riberside]

As a newcomer to this forum, I have been reading some of the threads and got interested in the tale unfolding in this one. However, I was disappointed to get to the end without seeing the promised photos. Any chance of seeing them Paul? :)

[Paul Narramore]

Sorry to disappoint you but I didn't use my camera to take the photos, Chris took them with his and I've not seen him for a while. But I will endeavour to borrow his camera and show them on here soon.

[riberside]

Thanks Paul. I look forward to seeing them.