Not my other garden!

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February 2024 was when youngest daughter, Victoria and her husband Daniel started house hunting. Both had full time roles in ecology and conservation respectively and they, and us, balked at the rising costs of renting. They didn’t want much! 2/3 beds, garden, garage and within 30 mins of their respective jobs.

They found a possible and Steve and I drove the 3 ¾ hours to a pretty village 3 miles south west of Diss on Norfolk/Suffolk border. It ticked all the boxes and had views from the back garden over the River Waveney Valley and was a 5 min walk to Victoria’s place of work. Steve and Dan had a closer look at the house whilst Victoria and I looked at the gardens. Nothing nasty appeared to be lurking though a couple of shrubs are now on the schedule 9 list: R. ponticum and C. franchetti. We also suspected lots of a straggly Hypericum [?]was suckering in one of the borders.

front garden Feb 2024

back garden Feb 2024

They got the keys in April, just in time for their first wedding anniversary and they decided to concentrate on decorating several rooms. That is another story but not for a gardening blog! They did notice a few of the shrubs/small trees in the front garden had been ‘hacked down’ to knee height, finding out subsequently, by the neighbour who had been in dispute with the previous owner. In June we went back down, I went to the HPS [Hardy Plant Society’s]Hardy Geranium Group day whilst those 3 did ‘something’. The following 3 days Toria and I tackled most of the front garden. Filling their and a neighbour’s brown bin. Grass, brambles and several dwarf conifers were cleared, the Aquilegia were replanted and that was it.

We went back for Christmas and in the 8 days we were there, a little more weeding was done and a rose was moved from the back garden to the front, where 3 Euonymus had been. I took down 20 pots of crocus as well as other plants selected from my garden when they visited us in October.

The weather was dire, foggy, cold and on one morning frosty. A super view from the back bedroom over looking the Waveney Valley. Before we left the sun was shining and the valley was flooded.

At the end of February we were invited back with the request we take the chain saw with us. Both of them have their full chainsaw licences and more importantly the safety gear. Off we went again and we had 4 days clearing the shrubbery in the back garden. The neighbours on the other side said as they were not really gardeners we could feel free to cut back anything overhanging or obstructing Toria and Dan’s enjoyment of their garden. So out came Mahonia, Hypericum, Laurel, Buddleia, Cotoneaster, Pyracantha and the Viburnum was reduced in height as they liked it. The one in the front garden was killed by the other neighbour who offered to concrete all the front garden, like he had done. They declined!

4 other neighbours offered space in their brown bins too, to help clear the material.

Under all the undergrowth we found a very large terracotta pot and several other 14” pots. Dan used spare timber, found in the undergrowth too, to temporally mark where they want the edge of the border to be. Early next morning we spotted a visitor, a Muntjac deer, which had come from the pasture beyond. The decision was made to add some of the prunings to create a 5ft wide by 3ft tall dead hedge. So Steve and I sat back with a cuppa whilst Dan, who has made many a dead hedge ‘cracked on’.

One of the beauties of where they live is the really good nursery about 25 mins away, Tim Fuller’s Plantman’s Preference and we popped along and she selected a few plants in lieu of an Easter Egg. I had also sourced a Medlar tree for her from Rogers of Pickering. They moved a small apple tree too.
The final day we were there, plants were popped in and Steve painted a wood preservative on the pergola.

The lasting impression of working with Toria is that this is clearly their garden, with their ideas and likes. The back half of the grass is being left wild, [ moth food plants] the front half will be mown and she has started to sow vegetables. I often thought my gardening interest hadn’t rubbed off but it clearly has.

This is clearly ‘not my other garden’ but I will enjoy working in it with her.

• 28 Mar, 2025
• 11 likes

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