Grass is always greener...

For years I wanted a larger garden, now we have a rather substantial 3rd of an acre. I wonder whether I've bitten off more than I can chew!

We've been in the house a year now, and have really had to concentrate on damage control in the garden and the house (old cobb cottage) but this coming year will be the time to really grab the bull by the horns. The garden has been abandoned for 3 years and there are trees that have sprouted in the middle of paths that are already 10 feet tall!

Gardening should be fun, but certainly this year I feel it will be more a chore than a pleasant hobby! A short list of the bug-bears so far:

The Hedge maintenance (collection of shrubs, bushes, brambles and trees) alone takes several weekends to complete the autumn tidy-up.

The lawn is waterlogged, compacted, mossy, weed-ridden and shaded.

Paths are overgrown, the gravel is beneath a layer of soil after several years of leaf build up and rotting down so just needs removing.

The Sheds are rotten and all need replacing.

Garden walls (dry stone) are collapsing where small border shrubs have turned into giant bushes or trees and the roots have pushed the stones apart.

Specimen plants have been dwarfed by their neighbours.

Half the garden has pretty much been written off for the time being as it's buried under a sea of brambles with stems an inch thick.

Heavy machinery is called for in certain instances, we've had to buy a chainsaw as the hedge trimming last year killed our petrol hedge trimmer. Don't even get me started on the poor mower!

 

Its all about your point of view. If your point of view is that you will single-handedly transform it entirely this year, then it is going to be a chore and may even put you off entirely. Sorry, its true.

If your point of view is 'yay, got 1/3rd of an acre with interesting nooks and crannies, a nice little meadow patch, a patch for growing your veg, and all the time and space you need to transform it any way you want, or the freedom to just leave bits alone entirely until you decide what, if anything, to do with it, then you might just love it

 

Definitely got potential, I wouldn't turn my nose up at it.

Cheers, Tony.

 

Yeah it looks a bit daunting.
But concentrate on one area this year, and just slowly move on to the next each year.
As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Not sure why they say that really.

 

I think it might be because it took more than one day to build it

 

Yeah,.......but so did London.

 

Sorry, didn't mean to sound ungrateful for my lot. It is one of the reasons we bought the house after all!
I love the garden, and I love that even after a year I discover new parts of the garden and plants that are hidden away. I just look at it every day and the brambles seem to have grown an extra foot!

 

Free brambles in summer. A haven for the smaller birds. And you can always take a brush cutter to it when you get round to that bit.

 

Dan, that is a beautiful garden,you could always invite all GC members to come for a weeks holiday and we will give you a hand, my dogs would absolutely love your garden!!

Val

 

Thanks Val,

I would certainly welcome some more experienced gardeners, just to tell me what not to chop down! Sometimes I can't see the woods for the trees!

 

Even in the most overgrown places you always find some part of nature benefiting from it.
In fact the totally manicured garden has very little for wildlife.
When you have a large garden you have the opportunity to leave certain parts to their own devises, and then nature moves in.

The bit next door looks like a desert.

 

It's certainly challenging and oh what a challenge, it's most gardeners paradise starting to put it right.

As you find it all a bit daunting at the moment I'd be inclined to start with what's immediately outside your back door, the first 30 - 50 feet perhaps. This is the area you'll probably want to chill out in through the summer and while your sitting there with a beer in your hand you can look down the garden and one of these will turn up .......a bright idea or hopefully more.

You don't need to get the first area totally to your liking, but get it to the point where you can live with and make use of it. Then work your way down the garden in sections. You will probably find having sorted out the first part inspiration will come for the rest.

 

Wow Dan you've got you own little paradise there!

 

I think the farmer had just cut the grass to make haylage in the height of summer, so probably a bit parched after that.

Good plan, that's pretty much where I'm at. The woodland at the bottom of the garden is quite dense and I have certainly written that off for now. The middle section is being over-run by brambles, so needs clearing ideally before they really take hold and smother a couple of nice hydrangeas.
I'd like to get the lawn in a better condition and lower the heights of the hedges that are blocking a lot of sunlight to the garden. I think ideally we need to remove some of the trees, especially the leylandii which I'm sure started off as tiny bushes!

 

There you go Dan, you've already got yourself a plan to start with and one thing usually leads to another. Just think about a certain amount at a time, if you think beyond that it will just get to you and you will feel as if you aren't achieving anything.