Author: Marion

Now I know this sounds very grand. I’m not talking majestic plane trees bordering a wide meandering lane rather, think of small trees, a couple of metres apart and overall length of around ten metres. So, a rather modest ‘avenue’. It wasn’t an avenue to begin with. As part of my original garden plan, I had planted three rowans, sorbus ‘Eastern Promise’, in a line, with an amelanchier a little further away but still in the same line.

The plan had been to create a border beneath these trees, but then a photo on a birthday card caught my eye and I changed my mind, deciding to plant an opposing line of trees and underplant both lines to create a mini avenue. So, five more rowans, this time sorbus hupehensis and a cononeaster waterii were planted once the summer heatwave was over to create two rows of five trees.

Removing the turf beneath the trees wasn’t too hard, not many stones and no troublesome roots, though I came across some tunnels – vacated by the voles or still in use? Time will tell. After a few days two new beds were dug and ready for planting.

I can’t take any credit for my choice of planting beneath the tees: our local garden centre has two borders along the path leading to its door, and I had admired these borders throughout the year in each season. So, I decided to follow its planting – heuchera, sedum, hebe, whispy grass and hellebores. As I needed eight of each plant (and the local garden centre is a bit pricey for bulk purchases), we spent a day visiting various nurseries and were successful in finding eight each of heuchera ‘Palace Purple’, hebe ‘Wiri Charm’, Stipa ‘Ponytails’ (Mexican Feather Grass) and sedum ‘Munstead Dark Red’.

Between each pair of trees, I planted one of each plant plus a self-sown hellebore (dug up from the ash border), keeping to the same order to create a repetitive pattern. Looking down the avenue in the afternoon, the autumn sun picked out the swaying grass and highlighted the red heuchera leaves, as good as I could have hoped.

Later in the autumn, remembering my initial inspiration of the birthday card photo, I planted 60 allium ‘Purple Sensation’ bulbs amongst the plants along both sides of the avenue. Hopefully next spring there will be two rows of purple flower globes above the plants. I say hopefully, as once the avenue was dug and planted it became apparent that the tunnels in the border were not empty. Little mounds of crumbly earth started to appear regularly along the edge of one of the new borders and I noticed that one of the plants had been pushed up. I spread the earth onto the border, firmed down the plants and the mole eventually moved further down the garden, leaving my new avenue to grow undisturbed. I envisage that the mole will make further appearances in future blogs.

Over the past year we have planted 47 trees. How did that happen? I’d promised myself I wouldn’t plant many trees because our previous, much smaller garden, was surrounded by mature oaks casting continuous shade and causing me much exasperation. When we arrived in Shropshire the main garden was one open expanse of grass with a single, rather incongruous mature conifer, so no more battling with shade – bliss! Surely, I’d avoid planting trees?

So why have I planted so many? Well, although there was the view to the surrounding hills, there was nothing to draw the eye in the garden, save from the boring conifer. I drew up my garden plan and soon created the orchard with 16 trees then planted 14 ornamental trees on the northern and southern sides of the main garden, leaving a large open space in the centre with the view to the hills. A total of 30 trees – surely enough?  Yet as this year has progressed, and I wandered around the garden I found places where a few more trees would help create the structure of the garden … we have just finished planting another 17 trees!

I wanted to create a mini-woodland, so last autumn planted four trees: a weeping birch (betula pendula ‘Youngii’), a robinia (robinia pseudoacacia ‘Frisia’) and two small cotoneasters (cotoneaster ‘Hyrbridus Pendulus’) which marked the boundary of the woodland area from the open, potential meadow area. Early in the year I moved some snowdrops ‘in the green’ from the back of the shrub garden to this area – the beginning of my woodland underplanting.  I also planted a purple elder (sambucus nigra ‘Guincho Purple’) and a guelder rose (viburnum opulus) near the fence which separates the woodland area from the secluded garden. We have mowed paths through these trees and bushes and I have now planted four more trees to create a woodland feel: a sweet almond (prunus dulcis); a pink hawthorn (crataegus  Crimson Cloud); a flowering cherry (prunus ‘Amanogawa’) and a snowy mespilus (Amelanchier lamarckii, one of my favourite small trees). The framework of my Woodland Walk is now in place.

One of our first trees was a flamingo willow standard (salix integra ‘Hakuro Nishiki’), which I planted to give height to the new border in the secluded garden. As well as the variegated foliage I was delighted with the bright red stems throughout the winter. So, I have planted another three to create a row along the border; they contrast beautifully with the shady hedge beyond. The new ones suffered in the heat with many young leaves shrivelling, but after trimming off the dead tips they have all recovered and are looking healthy. They do a great job of separating the secluded area from the rest of the garden.

One part of my plan which has remained unchanged is a stand of three silver birches (betula jacquemontii) which I have planted on the opposite side from the woodland. Behind them I planted a group of the yellow barked dogwood, (the dogwood which has been so disappointing, but which are still growing). I’ll be supplementing this group with the cuttings which I am nurturing, as I hope that eventually their yellow stems will be a contrasting foil for the white trunks of the birches.

I originally planted just two specimen trees in the far south‑west and north‑west corners of the garden, a purple leaved acer (acer platanoides ‘Crimson King’) and one with leaves green above and purple beneath (acer pseudoplatanus Spaethii). Both are potentially large trees, but I have positioned them to frame the view of the hills. But as the summer progressed I decided that there was room for two more specimens in the northwest corner: a Japanese larch (larix kaempferi (leptolepis)) which already has attractive cones and is promised to soon grow into a tall majestic deciduous tree; and finally, a tulip tree (liriodendron tulipifera) with its unusually shaped leaves, a tree which has intrigued me for many years. Hopefully these large trees will withstand the winds of our exposed garden and eventually provide some protection for the garden.

Our garden now looks very different to the empty space we acquired. The conifer has been incorporated into the boundary between sections of the garden and no longer seems so obtrusive. And our new trees have given the garden its structure, height and interest. Most are quite small ornamental trees and, even though some will grow into large trees, I think they are positioned so that shade will not become a problem. I don’t intend to plant any more trees (though I would like an alder with red catkins, and I’ve always wanted a wedding cake tree …).

So far this blog chronicles progress: onwards and upwards. Tasks might be difficult, conditions might be challenging, but progress – positive progress – is being made. However, that of course, is not how gardening really is. There are setbacks: some inevitable, some unfortunate and some inexplicable. Two setbacks for me this summer have been nasturtiums and willow – both plants with reputations for being reliable, robust and resilient, but nevertheless I have been frustrated with the nasturtiums and disappointed with the willow.

The round border in front of the house is planted with heathers and conifers and for much of the year is quite boring. To inject some colour, I imagined bright orange nasturtiums scrambling over the prostrate blue juniper, a quick and easy solution. In the past I have grown nasturtiums from seed with no problem. Despite a new potting shed and plenty of time, only a handful germinated this year in Shropshire (too cold? poor quality seed? sparse sowing?).  I ended up planting out just four small seedlings which I watered assiduously and helped to ‘train’ them over the juniper; four plants should be sufficient and they started off well. Then, part-way through our summer heatwave I noticed they looked rather forlorn, so I rushed out watering can in hand, but realised they weren’t wilting, rather they were being eaten.

On closer inspection I discovered caterpillars: large, fat grey caterpillars and lots of them. Even closer inspection revealed hundreds of smaller (some tiny) caterpillars on the underside of the leaves along with what I assume to be large patches of butterfly eggs. I knew of the idea of growing nasturtiums around cabbages to attract cabbage whites away from the crop, but when I’d tried that in the past the nasturtiums had flourished despite plenty of cabbage white butterflies flitting about. Here, in my Shropshire garden, with no cabbages about at all, the delightful – and plentiful – white butterflies had decided to use the foliage and flowers of my nasturtiums to grow big and fat caterpillars. Frustrating!

My disappointment with willow is very specific. We have successfully planted a willow hedge from two‑feet rods, and four flamingo willow standard trees are growing well. So, some of our willow is thriving. But I hankered after a sward of coloured stems and had earmarked an area at the bottom of the garden to be a blaze of winter colour. Thus, last November, we planted twenty bareroot willows with orange (salix alba britzensis) and red (salix daphnoides) stems and ten yellow barked dogwoods (cornus stolonifera flaviramea).

In April, following advice found online and in reference books, I cut back the stems of the willow and the dogwood to a few inches to promote lots of new colourful stems.

All the dogwoods have regrown (albeit much slower than I’d anticipated) but of the twenty willows, thirteen have died and the remainder look very sorry for themselves. Why? We found it tricky planting them with their long and stiff roots into our clay soil – cracks in the soil are still visible around some. The area we planted had a number of large ants’ nests. The summer has been very hot and dry (though the grass and clover around them haven’t suffered). We didn’t clear away the grass and clover from around the young plants. Perhaps we shouldn’t have cut them back in their first year. For whatever reason the stems turned black, leaves dried and curled. Digging up the dead ones revealed dead roots, some white patches – maybe disease?  Certainly, there will be very few colourful stems this winter. Disappointing.

But all is not lost. Now that the heatwave is over – and the butterfly life-cycle has by and large been completed – the nasturtiums are recovering; indeed, a couple are flowering again. The willow plants, on the other hand, are not recovering. However, when I cut them back in April I put some of the colourful stems in a vase of water indoors. Others I pushed into pots of compost. In both situations the cuttings readily rooted. So, now I have several young colourful willows growing in pots, so can try again. This time I will plant out pot-grown plants, carefully prepare the ground – removing grass and clover (and ants) – keep well-watered and not cut back until more established. Hopefully I will get my sward of coloured stems – onwards and upwards as they say!

Lavender is another one of those plants that, if not cared for properly, can look straggly, even unattractive. And like roses, is a plant which I haven’t been that successful with in the past. Here in Shropshire there are plenty of places in full sun, and although the clay soil shouldn’t suit lavender, we inherited two rows of a short lavender either side of the path under the ash tree – where despite the shade they appeared to be thriving. In the main garden a wide gravel path runs along the side of the house over which the grass and clover has crept making it very untidy. I decided that a lavender hedge to create a distinct boundary would help with our aim of changing the area of grass into a garden proper.

Hopefully, planting the lavender in the gravel path rather than the clay, would give it good drainage. So off to our local nursery and back with a dozen English lavenders – Lavandula x intermedia ‘Grosso’, described as vigorous with a strong scent – ideal for a hedge beside a path. To create a neat edge, I used old bricks. A retaining wall behind the house had partially collapsed long before we arrived (fortunately the bank it was retaining is held in place by the roots of numerous grass and weeds – the metamorphosis of this bank into something more attractive will hopefully be the subject of a future garden project and blog post, but not for some time yet). The bricks from this wall had been left piled up and although I thought they were unattractive as a wall they looked good as a lawn and path edging. I had my plan, now for its execution.

Well this proved extremely hard work. And it would have been, even without a heatwave.  First the grass and clover proved tenacious and took some removing, especially as I wanted to eradicate as many roots as possible – I didn’t want to be forever digging out grass from amongst the lavender. Then I had to excavate down through the gravel to be able to set the bricks level with the grass and gravel path and further to create a deep planting hole for each lavender. This is where it got seriously difficult, as the gravel was just the top layer over a much more solid seam composed of the garden’s characteristic grey stones embedded into the clay. It was painstaking work to dislodge these stones – sometimes I had to resort to hammer and chisel. I did one plant at a time, often only managing one lavender in a whole afternoon. Creating this hedge was going to take some time.

As seems so often to be the case, I was faced with two opposing concerns: would the dusty, stony planting hole offer too little in the way of nutrients and moisture for the plants, or would it act as a sump over the impenetrable clay, drowning the lavender? Too dry or too wet? This was becoming an all too frequent question in our clay garden.  To give the lavender a fighting chance, I mixed clay from elsewhere in the garden with small stones sieved from the gravel and some compost to make a planting mixture with which I surrounded the root ball of each plant. I watered each one in and surrounded them with a thick layer of gravel topped by a layer of the excavated grey stones to create a contrast with the gravel path. Job done.

Once my back has stopped aching I will hopefully be able to fully appreciate my embryonic hedge of lavender. My fingers are crossed that the lavenders will establish themselves and that they will be robust enough for our conditions. Plus of course I must take great care deadheading and pruning. Already the brick edging and stone covered bed has made a big difference to the look of the path and, along with the burgeoning flowerbed of the Secluded Garden, this now truly feels like a garden not just a field of grass. Good progress.

I’ve never been a great fan of roses. Well that’s not true: a healthy rose when fully in flower is a wonderful sight and if combined with sweet fragrance it is heavenly.  The trouble is that so often roses are not healthy – black spot, mildew, aphids all disfigure the plants. The flowering can be short, sporadic and disappointing; the growth dishevelled and sparse.  Plus I have never had much success growing them, though I must admit I haven’t tried very hard, put off I suppose by their reputation for being difficult plants and expecting them to disappoint. The roses I have inherited in Shropshire have changed all that.

On the day we moved in we were greeted by the spectacular sight of a fragrant pink climbing rose, covered in blooms: superb. Then, in the first few weeks in our new home, ten established roses in the raised bed in front of the house, all came into bloom and repeated flowering all through the summer and well into the autumn. Although the plants were a bit straggly, most had a delicious sweet scent as well as beautiful blooms – definitely worth cherishing.

As well as that, amongst the shrubs of the main shrub border, were five tall shrub roses, which again bloomed profusely all summer long, again with delightful fragrances.  Obviously, the conditions in our new garden suited roses, so I determined to care for them vigilantly; I pruned them hard but carefully in the spring and spread compost around their bases and have been rewarded by good healthy growth and lots of flowers. I am dead heading assiduously – a task I thoroughly enjoy; what can be nicer than wandering around the garden examining the flowers in detail, delighting in their colours and fragrance and noting new flower buds about to break? Not to mention the satisfaction of squashing greenfly!

My thoughts then turned to using roses in our new main garden. Although I had an overall plan for the our whole plot, which had not included roses, I let my ideas evolve and after visiting other (much grander) gardens, we made the decision to divide the main garden with a new fence, to separate the ‘formal’ garden area from the ‘natural’ area. I have always wanted an old fashioned shrub rose, so I decided to use them as an informal hedge along part of the new proposed fence. We are not far from the famous David Austin Rose nursery and we spent a very pleasant day wandering through their fabulous rose gardens and pondering our options over a tasty lunch (much recommended).

We came home with five bright magenta pink Rosa Rugosa plants and ten English Shrub Roses called Lark Ascending which has apricot, lightly fragranced blooms. Both are repeat flowering, both should reach five feet and both are described as having a healthy robust constitution – they are going to have to withstand a lot of wind! Before the very hot weather arrived, we set about planting our new roses taking care to give them rose feed and a good planting mixture to help them establish in our clay soil; and plenty of water during the heatwave.

I then planted eight of the Lark Ascending roses to create an informal hedge to separate off a small area which, rather grandly I am calling the gold-garden; I placed the remaining two apricot roses along with montbretia and red hot pokers from the shrub border, and three yellow potentillas along two of the other sides to start to create this gold colour scheme.  It then seemed that some sort of feature was necessary in the centre of this small area – for the time being a pile of bricks and flat log gives a focal point until I find something  which catches my eye.  Planting in the height of summer – and especially in the current heatwave – is a risk, but I’m hopeful that the robust roses we have chosen will establish themselves and help create the framework of our new garden.

When we arrived at our Shropshire home, I discovered an excellent range of established shrubs, chosen carefully to provide colour and interest all year. I gradually identified them – well nearly all of them. The problem was that many of the shrubs failed to produce any flowers in our first year, simply because they had all been pruned into round ball shapes. With around fifty mature specimens, this kept the shrub border neat with many anonymous leafy balls, but this shaping of the shrubs had cut away potential flower buds.

 

This had to change. Thus I did very little pruning in our first year- apart from the buddleia and the roses – and watched carefully.  Now that spring is well under way I have been rewarded with a wonderful and varied display.  There were a few shrubs which, without flowers, I had been unable to identify. In February I realised I had a magnolia from its characteristic furry buds, and although the March snow killed off most of them, from its few white flowers I could recognise magnolia stellata. Even earlier in the year, a large shrub revealed itself to be lonicera fragrantissima by its small creamy white flowers, though they did not seem particularly fragrant to me.

Beneath, around and behind the shrubs are a number of herbaceous plants: masses of perennial cornflowers (centaurea dealtbata, a real favourite of mine), swathes of deep blue geraniums, crowded thickets of montbretia (crocosmia, which flowered poorly) and rather tired clumps of red hot pokers. Spring produced primroses, snowdrops, daffodils, bluebells, lady’s mantle and pulmonaria, all dear to my heart.

But in such a crowded deep border it was difficult to get close to the plants to fully appreciate them. I determined to clear a path through this border, so that the shrubs and herbaceous plants could be seen close‑up. Creating a way in was relatively easy, and I used the stones abundant in the garden to begin two paths.

Ivy was cleared away and clumps of the perennials dug up, moved or potted up to go elsewhere later. I have removed hazels and numerous small ash tree seedlings and started waging a war against ground elder – and perhaps have won this first small battle .

As I cleared the route I made two further discoveries right at the back against the fence: squashed next to the buddleia I spotted a tall, but rather sparse magnolia soulangiana, with a single pink goblet shaped bloom – I have cut back the buddleia to give it more space. And hidden by an overgrown forsythia, I found a Russian Olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia) something I had not heard of before, but clearly identifiable from its small cream tubular and fragrant flowers – it is a favourite of bees and insects, so, now with my path, I will be able to see if its olive like fruits develop.

Once the path was made it needed something to keep down the weeds. It took quite a lot of time and effort to break up bark and smash up logs too wet for burning, but the result is a thick layer of wood covering the path, which hopefully will help me keep on top of the inevitable encroachment of ivy and ground elder.

It’s been a lot of hard graft, and it will take dedication to keep the paths clear of weeds and plants trimmed back – so has it been worth it? The answer is a definite yes. It is a joy to wander between, behind and around the shrubs, seeing them from different angles and in different combinations; studying their leaves and blooms in detail; spotting unexpected plants growing beneath them, previously unnoticed. The shrub border was a wonderful feature of the garden when we arrived, but the paths now going through it have opened it up so that its true worth can be fully appreciated. In one word: glorious.

We have seen quite a bit of wildlife in our Shropshire garden. The previous owners left a large bird feeder and a stack of birdseed which we have continued to put out, so we see a good range of garden birds and last summer we saw a pleasing range of butterflies, which I hope my planting will encourage.

Pheasants and (once) red-legged partridges come to peck at the spilt seed along with the ubiquitous wood pigeons. Grey squirrels, of course, hang on the feeders devouring much of the bird seed whilst sparrows, tits and robins wait patiently. Sparrowhawks are often seen, but fortunately mostly leave empty handed.

A large hedgehog has been seen in the courtyard and scats left in the garden testify to the presence of foxes and maybe badgers – once a large fox was seen passing through the courtyard and then running off down the garden with something large in its jaws – a squirrel perhaps.  Apart from bats, no other mammals have been spotted, but there is clear evidence of them in the grass of the main garden.  Mole hills have appeared on a few occasions, but the moles have not taken up residence – as yet. However, all over the garden are rows and clusters of small round holes, which from the flattened grass around them are very much occupied. Voles.

At least, from my online research, I assume it is voles, though despite sitting quietly in the garden at dusk, I haven’t seen a single one.  It seems likely that the voles have colonised old mole tunnels. When it has been very wet many of the holes appear to be full of water, but remain in use. My research tells me that voles can eat the bark of shrubs, killing young plants, but they don’t seem to have attacked any of the trees or hedging we have planted – thankfully.

Last summer, we left large areas of the grass to grow long, which looked lovely swaying in the breeze, but I suspect created an ideal habitat for voles. This year we will keep the grass cut, and hope that the voles decide to move elsewhere. However, I like to think that the voles provide food for the barn owl which I have been fortunate to see on two occasions at twilight.

A paved path between the shrub and ash borders led to a small area of grass enclosed by a five‑bar gate and three panels of garden trellis. We assumed the trellis was in place to create a small private area, screened from neighbours on the other side of the ‘paddock’.

We liked this private area, but two things displeased me. First, the trellis seemed out of place, too suburban for a country garden. Secondly – and to my mind more importantly – the trellis and gate obscured the view of the ash tree when looking back from further down the garden, and it arbitrarily detached the ash tree’s trunk from the old stone wall.

I felt that more could be made of these features so decided to set about remodelling this area, to create a larger Secluded garden. First – after some persuasion – my husband removed the trellis and posts (I have plans for where the five-bar gate will be moved to, and the trellis will get used somewhere less conspicuous at a later date, so nothing wasted).  There were three roses growing on the paddock side of the trellis – two were old and hadn’t flowered well, so they were discarded (I’m trying to be less sentimental over plants that are not doing well or in the wrong place).  The middle one though, a floribunda with small pink blooms and a charming fragrance, I decided to keep. It was a struggle digging it up, and inevitably many significant roots had to be cut. But I replanted it in the new border, pruned it back and shall wait to see if it recovers.

I then set about digging a wide border in line with the end of the wall which will be the boundary of the Secluded garden. This was hard, hard work. Firstly I discovered that turf must have been laid at some point – testified by pernicious green plastic netting (which surely should be banned unless biodegradable). Next there were many large roots not far below the surface – the only explanation was that they were from the ash tree; cutting them and digging them out made slow work. Then of course the natural shale stones and clay made it back breaking work.

It was my husband’s suggestion that we should put grass right up the wall – I had been pondering about what to plant beneath it without obscuring the beautiful stone and his suggestion seemed to have merit. So, some of the turf from the new border was laid up to the wall, over what had been a rather scruffy bit of gravel. I’m a great believer in finding where objects ‘belong’ in a garden, where they look right; we had brought a small stone bench from Surrey and I had placed it in a couple of different places around the garden, but as I laid the turf by the wall, leaving a narrow band of thick gravel, I realised that this was where the bench belonged. To my mind it looks made for that spot.

It’ll take a while to get the new border planted up and I’m planning to get some rustic fencing to separate the Secluded garden from the areas beyond, but already the view of the stone wall and the trunk of the ash tree is better than I had imagined, especially in early spring with the grass awash with primroses and celandine. And sitting on the stone bench, leaning against the warm stone in our new Secluded garden is just perfect.

Our first winter in Shropshire has been dominated by snow. Neighbours assure us that this year has had far more snow than usual – three times we have been snowbound, once with huge drifts blocking the lane.

The wintry weather has disrupted my plans for the garden. The first lot of snow in December resulted in postponing hedge planting until the new year. Then heavy and lingering snow in late February and early March delayed pruning of roses and shrubs. Nevertheless, despite the snow and bitter temperatures new life was emerging.

A majestic ash tree marks the boundary between the courtyard and the main garden, with bare grey branches sweeping out and up, culminating in  distinctive black buds. Strong winds through the autumn and winter have brought down innumerable small branches and twigs – all gathered up for kindling.

Beneath the tree is a deep stony border. I already knew that there were many hellebores and cyclamens, but winter aconites, small irises and clumps of snowdrops were delightful surprises.  When the sun broke through on this bed, the small colourful blooms shone amidst the stony soil, lifting the heart.

Thus, this was the first bed in the courtyard that I tidied (when the snow allowed), removing much couch grass and revealing growing leaves of daffodils and  bluebells, indicating that the colour of the ash border would continue until the tree’s leaf buds burst.

Long before we moved we had plans for an orchard. Nothing too big, simply a few ordered rows of fruit trees; a romantic rural scene. We soon earmarked the top part of the L-shaped garden to be the productive area , gently sloping to the south‑east and sheltered on the other three sides

I came across the website of a Shropshire ‘orchardist’ who specialises in old varieties, particularly those from the Welsh border counties.  So, in the autumn we visited his nursery high in the hills near Oswestry and he gave us a fascinating tour of his tree nursery explaining the fundamental principles of growing fruit trees.

From his list of suitable one or two‑year‑old half‑standard trees we made a selection of sixteen: eleven apples, two pear, two plum and a cherry, all different varieties, including some from Shropshire.

He contacted us in December to say that the bare-rooted trees were ready; we arranged to meet him at a farm shop outside Ludlow – where he was renovating an old orchard – to collect our trees. He instructed us to prune them to belly‑button height once planted, apart from the stone fruit which must be pruned when in leaf to minimise risk of disease.

My husband – ever with attention to detail – accurately measured and placed the stakes to ensure the rows were evenly spaced.

We planted each tree carefully, tied it securely to its stake and surrounded it with a rabbit guard.

Finally, I pruned the apples and pears to ‘belly-button’ height.

I arranged the apples, pears and plums in five rows of three, with the cherry off to one side where I plan to have soft fruit. A few weeks later I planted two sloe trees (blackthorn) at the top of the orchard. All very satisfying. Now we just have to wait – fingers crossed – for spring growth.