So where is our South Shropshire garden?
Our new home is nestled at the western end of the Wenlock Edge, an iconic limestone escarpment running northeast to southwest for over 18 miles, rising to 334m just to the east of our plot. To the south and east of our garden – which is at around of 180m (nearly 600 feet) – there are views of farmland and distant hills.
The valley in which we sit is between the two limestone ridges of Wenlock Edge and so I had expected that my new garden soil would be alkaline. However, when I tested samples from different parts of the garden all the results indicated a neutral soil – the presence of an established camellia and a couple of small azaleas confirmed that the soil was not alkaline.
By chance during the house move we had found, amongst old university files, a geology map hand drawn by me which covered the western end of The Edge right down to the boundary of our new garden! Serendipity? Fate? This map revealed that we sat over Lower Ludlow Shales not limestone, which I assume accounts for our neutral soil.
The plot we inherited had two main garden components: a large ‘courtyard’ garden and a much larger area of grass which had been kept mown for many years, though was more rough grass than lawn. The courtyard has large well‑established borders, well stocked with shrubs and herbaceous plants, and the soil – a pale grey-brown – is easy to work, though with lots of large stones (or bits of rock) – were these the ‘shales? Or bits of limestone?
The soil beneath the grassed area, as we were to discover, has a much more clayey texture, but still with plenty of large stones. A large green blank canvas.