Is it Cheating?
By teegee
4 comments
As many of you may know I am giving my garden a makeover and as a result of this it is quite bare in places, i.e. where I have left space for plants to grow into.
Then on looking closer and with the aid of a digital camera and a bit of prudent cropping I have tried to make it look not quite so bare.
Where to start ?;
OK the first two pictures are looking left and right from my back door, and as you can see; it is quite bare in places;
Looking left;
Looking right;
Lets take a walk around the garden and take a closer look!
Travelling in a clockwise direction we come to our sitting area where I have located a Sambacus niger.
Originally it grew it a pot, and during this time a fern developed, I thought the two colours and leaf shapes complemented each other, so I left them as they were!
Moving up the left side of my garden is the long herbaceous border, which has more or less been re-planted in the last year or so.
As a result of moving them and possibly the unseasonal weather we have had of late, my Delphiniums are a bit sparce of flowers as you can see here;
In the same bed you will find Pieris, Alliums and Dicentra spectablis as you can see here;
This is a closer look at the flowers on the Dicentra;
Still the same bed, as I said it is a long herbaceous border, here you will find a Eunonymous some Phlox paniculata and a few more Alliums:
On to the bottom boundary which is at the south end of the garden is an area where I have to be very selective with my plants because it is in the shade for most of the day!
You would have thought being in the south this should be the sunniest part of the garden but no, I am faced with a stone boundary wall topped with mature shrubs & trees.
The shrubs form the boundary of our neighbours in the next street.
OK I have learned to live with it and it keeps us private from our nighbours!
Luckily, unlike the west boundary the shrubs and trees are a mixture of flowering and different shades of evergreens so it makes quite a nice boundary.
The west boundary is a hedge from hell!!!!! yes you have guessed it….a badly maintained leylandii…so I will say no more on that at this point as it is a bone of contention with me and my neighbour!
This is a self seeded Digitalis which is really in the way but when it came into bud I thought I would just leave it to add a bit of colour to the area.
Once it has finished flowering I will get rid of it, or may consider transplanting it somewhere!
The Iris have been in a couple of years now, but I have only just planted the Paeony to see how it performs in such conditions!
Now round to my Clematis wall; This was erected to screen my greenhouse from the view we have from the conservatory.
I don’t know how many clematis I have growing up it, probably six or seven which flower at different times of the year!
This is one of them;
This area is a closer view of what you see when you look right from the back door!
I started off with a heather bed in mind, then I got a few grasses, then I got some iris siberica and it seems to be ever changing as I get a bit of this and a bit of that.
I think when the bed is quite full and established it will look quite nice!
Here you can see Aubretia,Heathers,Iris siberica, Crocosmia and Heuchera.
This is a low level view across the heathers towards the clematice wall, that is an Aralia to the left!
Now the west boundary;
The hedge from hell!!!
I have tried to disguise it by erecting some trellis in front of it.
I have recently planted a winter flowering Clematis along side a couple of Clematis viticelli and these plus a couple of climbimg roses hide the hedge a bit!
I also have a Camellia for evergreen foliage and spring interest plus a Cotinus ( Smoke bush) in front of it as well.
So apart from the height of the hedge I have the situation pretty much under control.
As you can see here this is how the Smoke bush looks today!
Then there is my coldframe,which my wife doesn’t like but I think is essential, so as a compromise I have camoflagued it with ivy as you can see here;
On a similar theme I have disguised the garage as well! see here;
The Rockery!!
This is the next area to be blitzed as you can see it is a bit over run with plants that have self seeded or spread a little too far.
So we will call this area……Work in progress ;o))
More of the rockery!
I was given some Irises from a friend which were supposed to be " low growing" so I stuck them in here and this is how they turned out!!
Then back to the start again and this is the bed in front of the kitchen window, and like my rockery it is " work in progress"
I have placed these plants in here with a view to having year round colour so only time will tell if I have got it right!
This is a Heuchera,Pieris,Sedum and unusual ‘fern’ like Hebe.
This is an orange flowered Potentilla, Sedum, Pieris, Heuchera and Thymus;
As I had my camera out I tool a look at my front garden and found a couple of things of interest e.g. Oriental poppies.
and Iris siberica towering above my Hemerocallis which will flower all summer ( when it eventually comes!)
As I came back into the house these took my eye’
An ivy leafed geranium (pelargonium)
and a Sciadopitys verticillata better known as; the Japanese Umbrella pine
As I asked!
Is this cheating ;o))
13 Jun, 2012
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Comments
Cheating? why do you think that. It is artistic licence but not cheating. By the way the garden is looking very good especially that bit in front of that hedge. You have plenty of colour and texture in the plants you have chosen. I left space for things to grow in to when I first started and filled in with cheap perennials or annuals to cover the bare patches. When we were doing my daughters garden we also left growing room and allowed the children to scatter annual seeds to fill the gaps. They self seeded much to the delight of my gdaughter.
13 Jun, 2012
If it is cheating then its going on all the time and not just on here, its modern technology gives us the means, haven`t quite made up my mind whether that is really to our advantage but you have found it useful for this blog and created a very good look...
You do have some grand specimens and I do like the selections you`ve put in the various beds, I often start with an idea and then change it because I get something that has taken my eye and think it will look good in a certain space, therefore altering things but that is my way and if it pleases me thats what counts.
I have a hawthorn at the bottom of the garden that creates a lot of shade, cannot cut it down as its home to hundreds of birds, took me years to find the correct plants to thrive down there, this year the plants have gone ape because of all the rain which is good, only problem is the ivy that grows through it thinks its autumn and keeps shedding its leaves and covering them all, just can`t win sometimes...
Enjoyed the tour of your garden Teegee....
13 Jun, 2012
Lovely Teegee....not cheating in my eyes :). Although I'm reading this on my phone and the images aren't so clear :))
You have your garden arranged beautifully and some nice plants in there too.
My own garden is very new with only a few mature plants but I'm learning to have patience. Thank you for showing me around :)
13 Jun, 2012
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Not cheating at all Teeg. your garden is lovely and 'seems' to be full of plants, but you now have the fun bit and that is to buy more, I like to buy plants at the GC. that are in bloom and then you can imagine them in your garden at home. Where your shady part of the garden is would be nice filled with ferns and even grasses, the top of my garden is very shady but most things grow quite happily there. Happy gardening.
13 Jun, 2012