The first thing we thought about was the features we wanted to have in the garden. These included: a larger greenhouse, a wildlife pond, a compost area, three small trees (for birds to perch in and to break up the sight line through the space, which, weirdly, has the effect of making a garden feel bigger!), a second smaller patio from which to enjoy the garden (especially in the late afternoon when it catches the last of the evening sun), and paths to allow us to move around freely, for both access and easy maintenance. Oh, and all the grass had to go as from a wildlife / biodiversity point of view, a lawn is like a desert!
We could then decide where to place the different elements. This was actually easier than it sounds as each element had its own specific requirements that more or less dictated where it had to go. For example, the greenhouse had to go in the corner where the old shed was (otherwise it would have taken up too much space). The pond needed to have some sun but also some shade from the neighbouring trees (too much sun would result in too much algae growth, and too little sun would stunt the growth of the plants we would be putting in the pond). And the trees, whilst being small / dwarf garden varieties, still needed to have space left for their canopies so we could comfortably walk past them without getting a face full of twigs!
After shuffling these items around on our plan, we just had to add the paths, making sure all areas of the garden were no more than an arm’s reach away for easy access and maintenance. All the space in between these elements would then become borders. And that was the plan complete!
Then came the hard labour of digging the pond, laying the paths and starting to plant everything! But over a few months’ worth of weekends, the new garden started coming together. This period of working in the garden coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns in 2020, which meant we didn’t have much else to do on the weekends anyway!
For the plants in the garden, we put a conscious focus on wildlife-friendly and nectar-rich flowers – those with the bee symbol on the seed packets / plant labels at garden centres. We also tried to plant a range of flowers that would provide a succession of flowers (when one plant stops flowering, another would just be starting) to give pollinators uninterrupted sources of nectar throughout the majority of the year. This is still a work in progress as not all the plants we chose have liked our heavy clay soil, or simply their position in the garden. But with each passing year we’re finding out which plants thrive in our garden. The experiments continue!
We also visited a garden nursery with a large selection of aquatic plants so we could make the pond an attractive area for wildlife and visiting pollinators as well.
Importantly, before ripping anything out of the existing borders, we waited to see what plants and flowers emerged in the spring and summer, many of which were completely hidden underground in the winter, but were nevertheless well-established and strong growers. If these plants fitted our wildlife-focused design for the garden, then they were allowed to stay – but if not, they went on the compost heap!
From experience in our previous garden, we discovered that pots can provide great creative freedom and flexibility, so around the edges of our borders, and even in the borders in some places, we have dozens of pots and troughs of various shapes and sizes. Pots allow us to grow plants where we otherwise couldn’t (eg. on the patio), they allow us to grow a mixture of plants that have very different soil requirements (eg. nutrient-poor and free-draining soil for Lavenders, or ericaceous soil for Acers), and also allow us to move plants around during the year so we can position them where we can appreciate them the most during their peak flowering seasons (eg. we have a Witch Hazel which has stunning yellow flowers in the late winter so we position this in front of our large kitchen window during the winter so we can enjoy its colourful display, but for the rest of the year it has quite plain green leaves – so once it’s stopped flowering we swap it with a pot containing a rose which we can enjoy later in the year when it starts flowering).
We now have flowers blooming in almost every month of the year – in Winter, Mahonias, winter-flowering Honeysuckle and Hellebores; in Spring, Forget-Me-Not, bulbs such as Crocuses, Daffodils, Muscari and Tulips, and our ornamental flowering cherry and apple trees; in Summer, Clematis, Geraniums, Verbena, Aliums, Fuchsias, Foxgloves and our small Hawthorn tree; and in late Summer and into the Autumn, Gaura, Buddleia and Cannas to name a few.
