It has been some years since my last blog on gardening and my little garden continues to be re-invented from time to time. Over the COVID years, I built raised beds in whatever space I could find with the idea of growing edible crops for our neighbours during the isolation periods. It didn’t quite work out that way so the raised beds were dismantled.
I had two problems, both affecting me around the same time. My garden is tiny and I tend to grow fruit and vegetables in containers. I managed well when I first began but my neighbour allowed me to use part of his garden for my pots so I could increase growing. Unfortunately, as my neighbour became ill, his family were planning on selling his home, so needed to fence off his garden and I would therefore lose the use of it. After some heavy work moving containers and clearing the space, then reorganising within my own garden, a dispute arose over boundaries. The containers had to be removed yet again until the boundary issue was settled and the fence erected.
Problem number two was when my other neighbour decided to reclaim his garden. In more than 20 years, care of the front garden was left to the other neighbours and when my new neighbour moved in four years previously, he had no interest in his garden and he allowed me to carry on – until I returned from a holiday and received a letter saying from immediate effect, he was taking his garden back and I could remove any plants I wanted to keep. Many of the plants were well established and I had no room elsewhere for them so I advertised locally for new homes for them, providing whoever wanted them had to dig them up themselves.
The garden had been invaded by couch grass and the cheapest way I knew of tidying it up was to layer cardboard, landscape fabric and bark.
It was soul destroying to see these plants go elsewhere but at least most of them found good homes. My Agapanthus was still recovering from the last time I had to split it, but it was a magnificent plant. It’s new adoptive owners took half the root and I divided the other half amongst friends. Sadly the shoots I kept were killed of in the Spring frost. The new owners of the other half have reported their many shoots are all growing well. Unfortunately I had to buy a replacement.
I am quite happy to turn the clock back and go back to the beginning. It is quite a challenge again. I’ve also had to reduce the containers, as I was given a garden arch in a gift. Initially it was to replace my old garden arch which had collapsed, leaving it topless. However, the new arch was nothing like it and much too small so it has replace a couple of containers and is now an arbour with my garden seat in it. My reduction in growing vegetables has been replaced with a collection of herbs.
My work in the garden is now limited due to health issues but going back to the beginning is the ideal solution. Part of the garden and pond is almost untouched but they will die down for winter and in the Spring, it’s a quick tidy up before it becomes inaccessible again. It’s a haven for wild life and I’m accepting all the creatures we would normally kill or poison as allies in the garden. Even slugs and snails live in my patch, I just need to keep susceptible plants out of their reach. Plant a pot of something they like might just keep them busy and away from my plants.
In the beginning, I brought my arch with me when I moved house. It was now at the side door of the garage I had. When the garage was removed and a new shed built, the arch found it’s new life over the path. It’s probably about thirty years old, but time and weather started taking its toll and slowly the joints started to separate. The top of it eventually collapsed and I refused to let the sides be removed, so it stood like the Pillars of Hercules until I found an abandoned piece of trellis to rest of the top to provide a support for my climbing ‘Handle’ rose.
The benefit of a small garden is that it’s easy to reinvent again. The neighbour’s family who caused some trouble with disputed fencing has given me his little greenhouse. Our local community have a ‘Gardener’s Corner’ which I help to supply with my excess plants so besides my own greenhouse, I now have a cosy corner, which is handy to store compost and seedlings.
In the meantime, the front garden has been left to grow wild, the conifers are no longer getting trimmed so are getting bigger. The grass and weeds are in an untidy jumble and plants which I kept under control before, are freely self seeding and spreading into other gardens. The neighbour’s idea was to turn the front garden into a car park but I see it as an invasion of privacy as it’s a large car and would need to park inches from my window.
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