Work in the front garden has been difficult, I must admit. This is the ornamental side and back in 2019 we had it looking tidy, if a little empty.
Then we made the decision to start on our big lockdown project. Consequently the ornamental side was left to it's own devices, as we just didn't have the physical capacity to keep on top of it whilst we had so much work to do building the new kitchen garden.
It didn't take long for nature to start to take over but at least it was a haven for bees, butterflies and other insects!
Despite the 2022 date on these photos, they were actually taken last year when we made a start on trying to tame the ornamental garden. We started by concentrating on the border which runs alongside the path from the gate. We still had sleepers leftover from the back garden, so used them to edge said border like we did in the kitchen garden. This border was a fair bit wider than the one on the other side of the path, but we made it a little narrower by laying the sleepers within it rather than on the grass which makes it a tad easier to access for weeding, etc.
We asked the lovely Mark if he would like a few hours gardening work and he very kindly agreed to come and do the heavy work clearing out the other two borders ~ it was exhausting just thinking about tackling it ourselves!
Mark did a great job and it gave us a nice clean slate to work from.
One border down, two to go!
I've may have mentioned before that our garden slopes in two directions ~ the joys of living on a hill! The ornamental garden slopes even more than the kitchen garden, so we decided the best way to tackle the problem was by making mini terraces in the borders ~ which had the added benefit of using up more of the mountain of soil we have out the back 😉
A view along the wall border from the path, with Adrian hard at work. We didn't have enough of the old sleepers to make the beds two sleepers high and couldn't get hold of new ones at the time, so used 4" fence posts instead ~ neccessity being the mother of invention and all that 😄 At some point, Adrian plans to front the beds with half-round log-roll topped off with like he did behind the pond.
This tree, which I think is a Whitebeam, was cut right back at the same time as the two sycamores. Vernon forgot to come back to put poison in it, which in the end turned out okay as in effect it has been coppiced! It had been pruned horribly previously but is now growing nicely from the middle in a much more even manner. I am keeping a beady eye on it, taking out the shoots that are growing where I don't want them to ~ very easily done when they are only just coming through.
Judging by the size of the trunk, I think the tree has been there for a long time. It was a bit of a pallaver but we got the sleepers up pretty close in the end.
Once we got to the tree, we then turned and worked our way back up the garden.
As each terrace in the border was completed, Adrian topped it up with soil before moving on to the next one.
The weeds were cleared as we moved along, too. As you can see, the membrane goes beneath the sleepers and up round to the top where it is tacked in place. The sleepers are 9" wide, so there is an inch on the other side of the fence posts that is covered by soil.
As I'm sure you can imagine, we were mightily relieved to get to the end of phase one. What with winter and one thing or another, the garden sat like this for a good few months before we tackled phase two but the break gave us a chance to think things through and see that we did, in fact, need to amend our original plans.....quelle surprise, eh!
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