Neglected Lincolnshire garden

Sapindus

I'm going to start a "progress" thread on my garden as well.  I've been here three weeks and planted a few of the things I brought with me because they desperately needed to be in the ground, but it's a bit of a drop in the ocean of grass!  It's about 20m from the house to the back fence, and about 35m along the back fence, but goes to a point at the North end because it's a corner plot.  Photo taken looking roughly north west.

Working_Mum

Oooh that looks like an interesting starting point Sapindus - looks like you've got some solid plants in there already!

What is your initial plan of action? Do you have lots of gardening experience?? I have really built my confidence and experience since I moved to my current home 5 years ago.

This is a lovely kind area of the forum so please ask away and keep posting pics - I love a good picture update!!

((WM))

Sapindus

My plan of action is: large pond, wildflower meadow, fruit, veg, herbs, polytunnel.  The photinia is going - it's in my Ugly Plants Top Ten.  So is the huge conifer, but I'll have to get someone in for that because it's tangled in the electricity lines. The photo does not show that the whole place is also loused out with horsetail.  Going to be interesting!

-taff

I'm not a photinia fan either, or  the fir [unless it's a pencil type]  so a double thumbs up from me. I had rampant horsetail too, the only thing I've found that gets rid of it is to cover it and never let it see daylight again, other than that, it's cut and pull whenever you see it or try to shade it out.

Looking forward to seeing what you do...

Sapindus

I have bought a chipper.  If it won't compost, chip it.  If it's too big to go in the chipper, chop it up for a log pile habitat.  This is the sort of garden where a pile of woodchip or logs isn't something to shove behind the shed and forget, it's a destination in its own right on a wandering path through nose-high (at the moment) grass. I intend to never use my garden waste bin again.

I have been transplanting interesting "weeds" from bits of lawn that will become something else, into appropriate other areas. Such as yarrow, sorrel, hawkbits and campanula into the wildflower meadow.  Geraniums, foxgloves and ground elder (yes, ground elder) into the shady margin under the big ash trees.

I rescued a couple of water irises from my mother's pond, which are sitting in a washing up bowl until I can get the pond dug, with a short piece of log for visiting insects to perch on. I also bought a ton of reclaimed walling stone  to edge said pond, which is sitting in a pale-gold heap amongst the horsetail and being explored by little black hunting spiders and solitary wasps in the meantime.

OK, it's not so much a garden as a nature trail...

-taff

oooo....well, chpped stuff is a path sorted, chucked on top of cardboard, it's quick and easy. Large stuff that can't be chipped could also be put in raised beds to fill the bottom up a bit, when they rot they hold onto water really well, lessening the amount of watering to do. 

Well done on hard work so far!

twopenny

Looks like fun 🙂
Don't forget Ox Eye Daisies https://www.plantwild.co.uk/product/ox-eye-daisy/
And Poppies
They used to grow wild here but have been stopped.

Until a couple of years ago a local farmer did this and it was full of butterflies and bees 

https://meanderingwild.com/stogumber-wildflower-meadow/

Sapindus

twopenny said:

Looks like fun 🙂
Don't forget Ox Eye Daisies https://www.plantwild.co.uk/product/ox-eye-daisy/
And Poppies
They used to grow wild here but have been stopped.

Until a couple of years ago a local farmer did this and it was full of butterflies and bees 

https://meanderingwild.com/stogumber-wildflower-meadow/

That's pretty!  If you want weeds which have evolved to grow well in corn fields, like poppies, cornflower, corn cockle, you have to keep cultivating the ground every so often.  I haven't really got ox eye daisies on the wish list as they can be a bit rampant.  There are some nice roadside verges round here which I may go and gather a bit of seed from.  Geranium, scabious, wild carrot, birds foot trefoil, ladies' bedstraw should all do well.

Sapindus

I have been meaning to update this, but there always seemed to be something to finish off first. But it's now almost a year since I first saw this place so things ARE starting to look different, and with most of the urgent jobs done on the house I should have more time for gardening this spring.

You can see right up into the north corner now, partly because I killed the ivy on the two big apple trees. I didn't like doing it, after years of telling people that ivy is great habitat and doesn't kill trees, but there was more ivy than tree. One is a Bramley and the other a Bess Pool so I really didn't want to lose them if possible. I was horrified to realise that after taking the thick ivy stems off the trunk, the Bess Pool has actually gone a bit wobbly. Fingers crossed.

I happily lived with the sea of long grass and just took out ragwort, brambles and plum saplings etc. Finally mowed about half of it in late August when it was so hot it turned instantly to hay and was popped over the fence for my neighbour's rabbits.

The most recent job just completed was giving the willow tree on the right a savage haircut. I was originally going to take it down even lower, but my son decided it would make a great place for a hammock, and I wasn't going to argue with that. Hopefully if we keep on top of the regrowth it will be whippy enough to do willow crafts with. In the meantime, some of the long poles were used to make a willow dome which is off to the left just out of shot.

The doorway faces down to the house and there will be a long winding path linking the two, with shrubs and fruit. I've just put in a Hamamelis intermedia "Pallida" which is flowering now, and there's a pale pink flowering currant to carry on after that, and then a Phildelphus that Tesco were selling for £3.50. Lots of scent! Am trying to resist the urge to buy too many plants before I'm ready to plant them out as I hate having them dying in pots and want to have interest all year round.

And then of course the other major project has been the pond. When I had some guys in to do the fences and the front drive, I got them to chuck a couple of railway sleepers on the truck as well. Actually lifting them into position across the pond was an engineering feat in itself, they are incredibly heavy. The cobbles are all salvaged and foraged, and some logs from a neighbouring garden when they had a tree felled. The spoil from the pond is laid in a bank which curves around the wildflower meadow on the left, and the few small rocks on the right are all that's left of the ton I bought in. I need to drop the water level in order to put some slabs at the far end.

It's often said you should live with a garden for a year before making a start, to get the feel of what is already there and where the sunlight falls etc. I don't think there have been any major surprises, but just today I have spotted a clump of crocuses struggling in the grass whilst planting out snowdrops, so I've put them in a pot for now. Have also planted wood anemones, wild garlic, aconites, Narcissus bulbocodium and Fritillaria meleagris.

I am so excited to see what come and lives in the pond, there was a water beetle in it about two days after I filled it in November. One balmy evening during the summer there were a dozen huge dragonflies zooming around the north end of the garden, I hope they come back this year. And I've put swift boxes on the house.

I think that's it for now!

Dustyevsky

Congratulations on arriving where you have in double-quick time, especially the pond!😇 Here we are, 16 years in this place, and all we have are a couple of wash coppers sunk in the ground, a tin bath and a horse trough!

Gardens may evolve, rather than follow a carefully laid-out plan, and anyway, they're never 'finished.'

twopenny

Love the willow bower 🙂 that's going to attract wildlife too.

And the pond. A good one. I'm envious. Pop some tall leaved plants in that for dragonflies. They like to rest. And plants around it will be welcomed by critters.I only had a tiny pot pond but got frogs and baby frogs in that. Took a while.

You're right, a wandering path is just what's needed. Follow the way you walk.

I'll forget you said collecting seeds from the wild. 😉 That's not legal but should some fall into your shoe or pocket it would be right to add them for wildlife.