Round the garden part 1.

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Well, I said I’d take you for a tour of my garden, but when I took a set of photos yesterday, there were so many I thought it might be better to do it in sections.

So – please come in! You can use the pedestrian gate past a new rose – ‘Alibaba’, and walk along the path – but do look at the plants in the narrow border next to it! That Diascia has survived three winters now. Heucherellas, Campanulas and Geraniums do well here, and an annual grass called ‘Briza maxima’ which seeds itself.

Rosa ‘Alibaba’

The other way of getting in is to go through the 5-bar gate into the carpark – I like having plants growing in the gravel.

The Osteospermum have crept through from their original bed – and I love them.

You walk past the rose trellis and down two steps onto the path to the house. You have to go under the branches of the older weeping ash tree – we think it’s about 200 years old.

Right in front of you is a bed of Geranium x magnificum. They look wonderful at this time of year, but their disadvantage is that they only flower once.

If you look to your left, you’ll see a large area of lawn with trees planted at intervals. There’s a copper beech, another (younger) weeping ash, a Cedrus deodara, a magnolia, a tall silver birch and three young ones we planted close together to create a multi-trunked tree – eventually! Right at the end of the lawn is my shaded border which has flowering shrubs in it -underplanted with plenty of shade-loving plants, of course!

The three tall poplars are by the boundary fence in the shaded border. The ash trees are always the last to leaf up!

The wooden steps go down to another grassed area – the lowest part of the garden. This is right next to the stream, and gets flooded when we’ve had a lot of rain. The Gunnera enjoys having damp ‘feet’!

Let’s go closer to the house.
You have to cross the stream by walking over an ancient stone bridge. Look to your left again to see the stream. (the second one is an older photo – the Juniper is still on the stream bank!)

On top of the bridge, the soil is very shallow, so I have a scree bed. The focal point is a piece of driftwood which OH got for me.

On either side of the path are small lawns with flowerbeds round them. Here’s the one to the right – at the far end is my gravel garden.

The wire stock fence was put there by our neighbours – I’ve done my best to disguise it with a border of flowers – that’s where the dwarf Hebes are planted.

Hebe ‘Hagley Park’

part of fence border

gravel garden

I took photos from my bedroom window so you can see the whole of the other small lawned area, and the steps to the stream, too. The large Aucuba to the right is a pleasure – its colour is so sunny! It also gives shade for my Hellebores that grow next to the wall there.

If you stand on the path across the front of the house, this is the view across the front garden.

From upstairs, you can peek over the wall past the roses and Clematis clambering up the house and there’s the side garden waiting for part 2 another day!

Just to finish this blog of the front garden, this is my favourite photo.

I hope you enjoyed the tour! I couldn’t show you everything of course, but I hope it gives you an idea of the largest part of this section of the garden.

3 Jun, 2012
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Comments

Stickitoffee

What an amazing garden! It must be like a dream! A lot of hard work I can see but to have a stream and so much space must be quite incredible. A different view from every angle and sooooo many lovely plants, do you ever come inside or stay away from your windows?

3 Jun, 2012

Jen_h

Thank you for sharing your lovely garden another beautiful walk with my morning cup of tea!

3 Jun, 2012

Simbad

Really amazing garden, yes like Sticki says think I'd spend all day wondering round or looking out the windows, paradise............

3 Jun, 2012

Round the garden part 1.

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