Garden - End of month view

Slightly belatedly I thought I would like to join the end of month view started by patientgardener   I love seeing other people's end of month views and my own garden changes so much and I forget so much that I thought it would be a good discipline to make a record.

So here is the side garden.  There was a very narrow strip of flower bed along the wall when we came, about two foot wide, and not much else.  The whole of the side garden became a building site when we had the utility rebuilt at the end of 2008.  There wasn't much choice in doing this as the yew tree at the corner of the building was pushing it over.  So last summer was the first attempt at reinstating a garden.  I dug a huge new bed, widened the other one and reseeded the grass.  The soil here is probably the stoniest in the garden so it has been a project to work out what will grow here which will also look as if it belongs.
 I have tried to start some evergreen framework.  In the front of the picture is an eleagnus which I hope will eventually provide a bit of a windbreak as the wind can whistle through here if we get a strong westerly.  There are also three sarcococca humilis, a hebe and several euphorbias in the side bed.  In the bed against the wall is a pittosporum and a phlomis.  The colour at the moment is coming from hellebore orientalis hybrids, five of them in the foreground here and another three in the other bed.  The pale one here was given to me by Karen from An Artist's Garden.  They are flowering beautifully.  I mulched the hellebores with leaf mould earlier this year and they have really responded.  I am tempted to include some close ups but that is not really the point of this post.
 This is what is happening out in what will eventually be a little orchard.  The Tenby daffodils, narcissus obvallaris, are coming out around the fruit trees.  This one is a Howgate Wonder apple which was already here.  There are also a lot of Thalia but they is not yet flowering.


Here is the view up past the new fruit trees towards the cutting garden, empty and sad though it is.  That is probably the place in the garden which changes most dramatically as it fills up with annual flowers.

This is the sunny bank in front of the cottage.  The tree is a little quince.  The daffodils here are just beginning to come out.  There are primroses at the end of the bank and another eleagnus.  This is the driest, sunniest part of the garden and the bank has penstemons and sedums in it, not looking like much at all just now.

The kitchen garden is intended to be mainly for herbs and salads, peas and beans, and plants which attract bees and butterflies.  This is the hardworking end of the garden.  The raised beds are netted at the moment because the hens scratch and the onion sets are in.
It is funny how bare the garden looks when you take distance photographs, whereas close to there are hellebores and primroses and more and more daffodils.  It is the amount  of bare soil I suppose!

Comments

  1. Lovely idea to keep a monthly record of your garden Elizabeth. Look forward to seeing the photos and the changes in the coming months. Such a beautiful time of year, with so much happening. We are winding down here and enjoying the last of the warm weather,the roses are putting on a superb Autumn display before a long winters nap.

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  2. Looks such an interesting garden - and a good idea to keep a photographic record - we always forget how much things spread in the summer!

    You have fantastic views from there, too!

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  3. The gardens looking lovely. I love this time of year, everything is so full of promise.

    Just popped by to wish you a Happy Easter.

    RO xxx

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  4. I love reading about the new things you do and your constructive approach to making things happen in the garden.For me it's mostly maintenance - cutting the hedges, mowing the lawn.
    Wish I had a little quince. Of course I could buy one but I haven't really anywhere to put it - so quinces will have to come from the Mill (where the fruit tends to be full of bugs) or from the greengrocer.

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  5. I looked at these pictures with such awe. The open sky, the stretching landscape, the possibilities of an evolving garden that will see many seasons.

    What fabulous discoveries will unfold! Please do continue to show us around your beautiful hills.

    xo

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  6. I loved your phrase 'the hardworking end of the garden'! I once planted a huge vegetable garden and had visions of slightly grubby but golden-haired children helping to weed and harvest, great pots of home-made soup from home-grown veggies, a blissful feeling of being in touch with the Earth...etc.etc,etc

    I gave it up after one summer and put in grass. But it remains a fond memory!

    Such a lovely spot you have, Elizabeth.

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  7. What a good idea making a record like this. It's hard to believe looking at the amount of 'brown' at the moment that 'green' will ever predominate.

    Feel very virtuous having planted onion and shallot sets today - and broad beans. Looking from the window now I can already see a pheasant eying the beds up. Sigh.

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  8. While your spring flowers are coming out, our trees are turning fall colors! Easter is autumn is even more bizarre to me than Christmas in summer.

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  9. Gosh, that looks lovely.

    I've just read your post about being happiest in one's fifties. I think I was quite happy earlier in my fifties but at the moment I'm certainly not: our last child (of 3) has now left home and I miss her (and the others) so much.

    Then I came to the bit about your grandson. Ah. That might be the key. Alas, we have none yet. Maybe there's hope though.

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  10. Lovely raised beds. We have the lumber all ready for ours, and it will be The Great Dane's project for this week.

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  11. Hi - thanks for joining in the end of month view. I find it challenging at this time of year to post pics of the garden because as you say the borders look so bare. Looking forward to seeing how it develops

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  12. Claire - I am looking forward to it. Hard to imagine, as we warm up here, that you are winding down.
    Gilly - I have been looking at my side garden and trying to remind myselfy that one of the hardy geraniums, currently occupying about nine inches of space, sprawled to about three feet wide last summer!
    RO - thanks and Happy Easter to you too. This is my favourite time of year by a long way.
    Fennie - we have projects because we need to have projects! It is years off before we get to the maintenance stage.
    Frances - thank you. It is a life so different from yours it is quite extraordinary to think people who are probably quite similar can live so differently!
    Deborah - I love your vision. I have a similar one which sort of plays out, but with the grandson rather than the children, easier altogether.
    Mountainear - I like the idea of the record too. So easy to forget and so interesting to know.
    MOM - you are right. Easter in autumn is just weird.
    Isabelle - It takes a while to get used to your children having left home. I had mine quite young so they have been gone a while and now I like it!
    Pondside - hope your project works out well!
    Patientgardener - I think this is a great idea. I sort of meant to do it last year for myself but just lost it so hope the fact that you and others are doing it will keep me focussed.

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  13. I am far too scared to post end of month views - although mine is looking slightly less like the 'burnt earth' era of the Soviet retreat now I've cut the dead growth off a few shrubs. Having said that, I love seeing views of your whole garden - it's lovely to get a ssense of where you garden and how it develops. Dx

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  14. I have a garden Journal for every spring when I plant shrubs. It really helps. You have a lovely place. I think I would love living there.. yvonne

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  15. I like your garden very much~~The orchard to be on the rolling hill is perfect...I think this might be the prototype garden that many of us carry in our unconscious....It certainly resonates with me...gail

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  16. I love that gnarly fruit tree... very cool.

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  17. And what view you have too! I would like a quince tree - quince Jelly, mmm...

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  18. I know what you mean about photographing your yard/garden from a distance.... which is why I post so many closeup shots! 8-)

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  19. OOh, what nice bones your garden has! That orchard must be a blissful place to sit in the summer, gazing out at the hills with bees a-buzzing.

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  20. Little Green Fingers - I am fascinated by the views of people's gardens. I am sure yours is no more scorched earth than the rest of us have!
    Yvonne - I love my garden journal too, although it is a rather battered looseleaf book really. I was given a beautiful one by a friend but for some reason I am making myself get the end of the present one before I bring it into use.
    Gail - thank you. I loved yours too from the pictures. I think you might be coming to Malvern, is that right?
    Dirty Girl Gardening - it is great isn't it? I keep trying to take the definitive photo but haven't succeeded yet.
    Mark - I love quince, love cooking with them, love quince jelly and the tree is a lovely one too. Go for it!
    Marcheline - I felt a bit embarrassed putting these photos up because my close up shots are so much prettier. Glad to know I am not alone.
    Frugilegus - what a great thing to say! I am not sure my garden does have good bones but I love the idea so much that I shall just smile delightedly and not argue. My orchard is still young but it will be as you describe in a few years. The trees are already higher than my head, except the mulberries which are tiny!

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  21. Look forward to seeing future end of month views. I have fallen for your orchard in the making - I can just imagine drifts of Thalia illuminating a cloudy day :)

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  22. Great looking garden - but primroses?? Already?? Crikey we are still weeks away from those yet. Lucky you they are one of my favorite flowers.
    Thank you for dropping by my blog and leaving lovely messages, sorry I haven't been able to reciprocate much recently. Great fun to catch up though and read lots of posts in a one-er.
    CKx

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