Our Garden Progress, West of Scotland

My Girlfriend and I are first time buyers and bought our Victorian converted flat a year past on April 12th. The property has a fairly large overgrown walled garden to the rear which we have slowly but surely been clearing.

With heavy heart we elected to fell an enormous conifer which blocked out light for much of the day. I did the entire thing with a handsaw



We found a patio under the grass:



Being novice gardeners we have no doubt committed gardeners sacrilege but we will be keeping the larger trees and are stripping it right back. The plan is to keep the right side as a shady border garden, deck a small area of the top of the garden, lawn in the centre and patio the bottom section.



I am going to put a small trellis on the top of the wall and encourage climbing plants to grow up to provide some screening, place structural plants to the rear with shrubs and flowers flowing down to the path.

My initial and not so artistic garden plan:



Any suggestions you might have for the garden or planting suggestion would be much appreciated. I hope to update this thread with our progress.

Thanks for looking if you made it this far!

Andrew

 

Good job. Served its purpose, and you can now plant something else to take over the baton.

Probably not ... normal advice is to do as little as possible in the first year in order to find out what springs up ... and I reckon you've done that

The proposed Patio down the bottom of the garden is a long way from the house to lug all the booze, food, seats, cushions, and general paraphernalia. And THAT BANK every time you go up and down ... mind you, you both look young ... Faces South though ...

You could plant the bottom of the garden, which would move the Patio nearer the house, and provide a nice backdrop when you sit out.

Possibly have Veg right down the bottom, that always looks untidy (along with Shed and Greenhouse) and then some "screen planting", and then the Patio. Bit more effort and the Patio will be right next to the Decking

talking of which ... there was a chap called Kyle on Hardy Tropicals Forum half-a-dozen years ago. He also had a sloping site, surrounded by suburbia, and Grand Designs for what he would do with it ... mostly around coming out of the house onto aerial walkways leading to the garden, which would be planted in an Exotic Style.

Personally I think the size of his Virtual Koi Carp are ridiculous ... but the rest of it looks realistic



I know he fell ill for a while; his facebook page has been updated since but not much recently ... don't know what happened to his project, the bits that he did do looked to be to a high standard. Anyway, just musing out loud in case there is any food-for-though.

Arctic Jungle

 

Thanks Kristen, that is food for thought indeed. I like the idea of the veg garden at the foot.

When you are working on something and get an initial idea in your head it’s refreshing to hear someone else’s thoughts.

That was the one sacrifice getting a flat, it’s a bit of a trek to get down there right enough.

Will give that a watch later on, looks like an interesting project!

 

Well done Andrew a big job but you both are having a great workout better than any Gym you have your own outdoor gym .Its going to look wonderful.

 

Zip wire? Needs to be downhill both ways !!

 

We are saving big time on the gym membership although I’m still being forced to run in the morning to shift my winter coat

Now we are talking! That would be a much quicker way to get down there or at least to get the beer bucket down haha