Please help plan my garden

slopemaster

I am (probably) buying a house and expect to move in about September, all being well. I would like to start planning what i can do with the garden, so I am all ready to go when the time comes - so please help.
I don't have much gardening experience, and none in recent times.

There are front and back gardens, but lets do the front first.
Its TINY, a square about 2m x 2m, with only a scraggy rose bush and some scraggy grass. Open onto the street. (I might think of a front wall, but thats not very moneysaving so maybe not. theres not room for a hedge, unless maybe a miniature box edging thing)

It faces East, but I think probably quite sunny as open to the south and north also. I could plant a nice shrub (magnolia, rhododendron) but prob only room for one. And would its roots be a bit close to the house? Or I could go for a cottage-garden riot of flowers type thing, with a peony and some annuals?

It needs to fit with a 1980s house in a row of turn-of-the-century terraces. (I'll try and post a picture)

Thanks in advance if you can help me lay my plans

slopemaster

it won't let me post an attachment, heres a link to the house
http://housenetwork.co.uk/my_site.asp?id=foxhillxdf&house=1#top
you can see small patch of grass and scraggy rose I hope

Le-y

Dont have a lot of imput to give as i am only a new gardener myself but just wanted to say good luck with the sale and move and lovely house

slopemaster

thank you, ellie!
Is that theoden as in LOTR?
and what's son number 2 due to be called?

Joly_Roger

Hi

before:
(add a H at the beginning) ttp://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee19/Adadinsane/foxhillgarden1.jpg

after:
(add a H at the beginning) ttp://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee19/Adadinsane/rogergarden.jpg

What I would do is to try to make the most of the small garden, and a great trick to give more space is to have a circular lawn, it has all the width and length of a rectangular lawn but leaves corners for planting so it feels bigger by not reducing the apparent size of the garden as a rectangular lawn would, yet still somehow having a full width and length lawn.


Creating a circluar lawn is easy (just look it up on BBC gardening) and I would bury bricks around the circumference of the lawn to make mowing easier and to ensure the lawn always stays circular. To improve the lawn i would spike it as it looks compacted, and I'd top dress it with a mixture of lawn sand and top soil to rejuvenate the lawn. You may want to dig it over if it's really bad so that you can mix the top soil and sand in then re-seed it.


I would buy a £10-£15 Cordyline and leave it to grow in the far right corner. In a few years it will give you wonderful privacy and height in the garden as it grows quickly, but only vertically, the old leaves become trunk and it soon resembles a palm tree. In June it often bears flowers , which have a wonderful fragrance and the resultigng seeds provide food for birds in the autumn.

I would stick 2 low maintenance Phormiums in the first 2 corners as they give height and form, but don't grow too big to obscure the garden.

A water feature in the centre could be achieved for as little as £30 if you go for a pebble fountain, this would keep your focus within the garden as well as adding a wonderfully relaxing sound.

I would add gravel or pebbles around the lawn for 4 reasons:
1 - cut down on / eliminate weeding
2 - look much more attractive by tying the whole garden together.
3 - work as a mulch to reduce the need for watering in the summer
4 - Keep your footwear clean as all the earth is covered.

You could even use the same gravel which is in the driveway so your garden is in keeping with the area.

I would paint the shed a darker colour so that it recedes as it's not an attractive feature.

I would stick a clump of red hot pokers in the left corner and possibly add some trellis to the shed to grow a cimber up. Clematis Montana .. Passion flower.. Honeysuckle... They're all easy to grow yet beautiful climbers.


I've added a photo to illustrate what I'm suggesting (took me ages to create) which may or may not have loaded, but in the photo I didn't show any trellis work on the fence. I woud definitely recommend fixing maybe 1-2 foot of trellis on the right hand fence and then gowing any of the aforementioned climbers along it, so you get beautful flowers, a visiual barrier to give you some privacy, possibly a fragrant garden and you help the bees out by giving them more pollen.


The design I'm suggesting would cost a bit of time, effort and money now, but would be very low maintenance so you get more time to relax in the future.

Mybe you could fix supports for a hammock as well, so you really get to relax in the future - good luck!

slopemaster

WOW!
I am very, very impressed with all that work on the photo.
Its almost like i don't need to do the garden!
thank you for taking the time to do that.

OK, we're onto the back garden here....
It faces West but looks like that tree on the SW boundary (belonging to neighbour) will shade the garden and take goodness out of the soil...
(Wonder if I could persuade them they dont want it...?)

I like your circular lawn and space for planting.
the gravl/pebbles idea makes sense, and the slate you have shown is in keeping with the urban environment... but i am not sure that that, and the sparse, spiky planting are really'me'.
The photo you did is really good as it has helped me to think this out.

But i think something more cottagy is more my thing.... Maybe a small apple/cherry/plum tree where you have the spiky palm thing.
And lots of flowers. I would like to squeeze in a few veggies though, or at least herbs....but it really is a small garden!
I THINK the shed is going, and i don't particularly want to buy one, but i suppose i will need somewhere to keep tools and pots etc - any bright ideas for that, anyone? Something to store tools in that doesnt cost too much or look too bad? Otherwise just grow ivy and climbing plants up it, yes.

I will definately adopt your trellis idea on the RH fence to screen it a bit better. That is the north side, so south facing - will clematis and honeysuckle like that?

Thanks Joly Roger for your ideas.
Any other ideas are very welcome too...

slopemaster

PS like hammock idea but no space - just have to squeeze in table and chairs on tiny paved area I think. Maybe a deck chair.

ixwood

Joly, that's a brilliant bit of editing/design.

Lotus-eater

That's a tiny garden, so you really want to make the most of it by careful planting.
Fruit tree wise, you can go two or three ways.
Way one, is to have a plum tree on a dwarfing rootstock, this will establish fairly quickly and give you IMHO the best return for the size of fruit tree.
Way two, is to have cordons down one fence, I haven't got experience of these apart from seeing alot of them, but I'm sure you could get in 4 or 5 down one fence. I know rhiwfield on here knows alot about them, so it might be worth getting in touch with him/her. Also there are some guys on GYO (the grapevine forum) that are good with them.
Way three, is to have trees in pots, these will be good if you are thinking of moving in the next few years, as you can take them with you. Various trees specially grown for growing in pots are available.

A good vegetable bed will be sheltered, in the sun most of the day, not near a tree or hedge, so put one wherever you can, it can be any size or shape, or you can grow veg in containers, they will then need watering everyday and you will have the compost to get rid of now and again, so having somewhere in the garden to put that would be good, hence a proper plot on the ground together with a couple of pots is probably best.

A veg bed partly in the shade isn't a bad thing either btw, useful for growing leafy stuff like salad leaves, which like part shade.

rhiwfield

Not sure about clematis on the south facing fence as they like cool roots. Honeysuckle sends out long root runs just under the ground and can cope with dry conditions much better but needs a sturdy structure to climb up on .

Re fruit trees, as Lotus Eater implied I went down the "trained" tree route. This was because I wanted to use narrow spaces by walls and fences and not shade rest of garden. There is a time commitment in both the training (you need to prune regularly) and in waiting for a crop (probabaly 2-3 years from planting). FWIW the blossom display for 2 weeks in spring is marvellous.

slopemaster

Thanks, some more food for thought there...