Our Garden

After the generous advice I received regarding creation of new flower beds, here are the modest fruits of my labours so far:

First, some pics of the main section of the back garden "as was" - ie turfed and nothing else.
These are taken from upstairs inside the house.

This is a (approx) south facing garden, looking at the south-west corner.



(You can see I have been marking out shapes with pegs and wire)

And the other (south-east) corner:



I am quite pleased with how the turf turned out - its about 6 months old now.

Now a picture down at ground level. You can see the shapes I have marked out with the pegs. The square closest to the camera is to be a little drying area (with a whirlygig and covered in stones of a colour to provide a nice contrast to the grass).

But it was the rear shape I'm working on for now, which is to be a flower bed.



So first I had to lift off the turf, to expose the bare earth. I was advised this was best, to avoid any problems with grass growing through the bed.

I had thought lifting the turf would be easy, but in fact it was very arduous (!) mainly because I am such a softie unused to the physical rigors of gardening! The soil underneath is extremely thick and heavy clay which also did not help.

The next morning I felt as though I had been beaten with sticks; down the backs of my legs, along my forearms and across the palms of my hands. I now suspect garden spades were invented primarily as a kind of punishment device, haha.

However I got a lovely sunny day to do this work on and so I can't complain too much. Here it is with the top layer of turf lifted:



Its not too clear in this pic, but the soil (clay) underneath was hard-packed and very unsuitable-looking for anything to grow in. The section nearest the camera is very angular looking - I had wanted it to be curved more, so that is a little fix needed at some point.

That was last Saturday and so this Saturday I set about digging in some horse manure to improve the soil. I used the "double digging" method as advised by spruce, and put in the manure as I went. I was a little shocked at how much manure was required, 11 x 50 litre bags went in, more if I had not been a bit stingy to start with. I still have a 12th bag and so will probably just lump that in anyway.

Surprisingly, It was easy enough to turn the soil - as the clay sticks together, I was able to turn it over in big chunks, like segments of Dairy Milk Chocolate! I then had to chop these chunks up and mix in the manure.

Some of the colours of clay were interesting, different layers of grey-blue and browns etc. Some of it feels like plasticine in your hand. Dreadful stuff. I also dug up all manner of builders detritus - half-bricks, plastic bags, metal rods and pegs etc.

I wanted to go to a depth of one shovel head, but I ended up going to just less than this - as I noted at that point the ground becomes rock hard. Today my right palm and elbow are very sore from my fruitless attempts to break this layer.

Post-manure, the ground looks much better and far more suitable for planting.



This is taken from upstairs again - even from this distance, the ground looks so much better than the hard packed, smooth surface which (without turf) water would pool on top of.

I still have to improve the edges on it and put some edging material on. I will leave it for a week or so and then go over it with a rake and digging fork.

Some questions I had were:

- what kind of edging material is best?

- my wife did some pH tests of the soil last week; they came back as neutral (7). Is this OK for most plants and will the added manure alter this in any way?

I will add other updates as things progress, thanks for reading and any comments.

 

Neutral pH is fine for most plants. It's looking good. Don't be tempted to overfill it at first especially if you are putting in shrubs or perennials.

 

Looks

you are doing great , I never bother with edging to separate the lawn I find it a waste of ££ and time and a home for slugs and snails.

So glad you doubled dug it , yes back braking but will pay dividends when you come to plant and it shoudnt flood with water as much , the manure if not "mushroom compost" wont change the ph , and in future you can just add to the top and the worms will do the rest for you the more the better if you can get it for nothing ?

The only thing I would mention is next door garden to yours , as I was lucky and was given welsh old slates from a old roof and I edged all around my fence half buried in the soil to stop next door grass from growing in , something to think about and so glad I did.

Roughly where do you live as this will help with any questions about plants etc

Spruce

 

Hi Gabriel , your lawns looking great , plus lovely blank canvas to work your magic on
I see you marked your borders out with pins and twine. Your not an engineer by any chance are you

 

You have certainly worked hard! Yes, clay soil is very heavy and back breaking work - especially when you aren't used to it.

You have created a lovely space to begin planting with. What "style" of planting do you favour? Informal? Contemporary? Cottage garden style?

Edging materials can really be down to personal preference - or whatever you have available. In my last garden I had access to as many empty wine bottles as I wished for, so I edged my borders in upturned wine bottles But, as Spruce says, you don't even need to use edge material at all.

 

Thanks westwales.

As we are now into May, would you say it was too late to plant anything this year? (I am a real novice).

I have been wondering if its worth planting things just now, or if it would be more profitable to spent all the time preparing for next year?

 

Thanks for all the tips Spruce - your prior advice was a big reason why everything went so well!

You mention worms - I actually did not see many worms at all when doing this work, (maybe just two in total) presumably they don't like this kind of soil? Is it possible to acquire worms from somewhere to add?

I might add a layer of top-soil from bags over the top of what I have currently - just to give another 1-2" of depth, given the rock hard ground stopped me going quite as deep as I would have liked.

Our location is Glasgow - any advice / recommendations on plants would be well received.

Obviously the Scots climate is a limitation for gardners, unless you know of any attractive plants which love torrential rain, biting winds and gloomy, overcast days haha! (We have actually been quite fortunate this year so far - probably blown our allowance of sun for the next decade!).

I have read up on the types of plants - annuals / perennials / biennial etc - my previous understanding was not quite correct.

Anyway I think the wife and I are on the same page with what we want - we definitely want a colourful garden, but also some shrubs and some climbers (against the fences on wire or trelisses).

 

Thanks mate!

And yes I am an Engineer haha! Takes one to know one huh? Well spotted!

I must admit I did enjoy lovingly arranging my pegs and wires

Thanks for the kind words!

EDIT - ive now updated my account to display my engineer credentials lol

 

Thank you M.

I admit I don't know much about different styles of planting. Are there any good threads / online articles you would recommend to learn from?

Of the types you mention, "informal" probably sounds most appealing. Although thought and effort go into every garden, I would like the results to look natural / informal, as though it has come about randomly to some extent, rather than as the result of detailed planning.

Ultimately, I want to the garden to have a relaxing, pretty and easy-going vibe to it, if that makes any sense.

I like the sound of your wine bottle edging - that's the kind of unique touch which really sets a garden apart from the crowd.

 

Hi

I did think Scotland because of the fence style as they had new houses on Beechgrove with the same fence

 

Gabriel, I think you've done a fantastic job so far Keep up all the good work. I think if it were my garden I would want either a columnar tree/bush or a climber growing on a tripod in the south west corner to take away the harshness of all the corners meeting.

 

If you know what you want no it isn't too late. It seems though that you're not sure yet so I would suggest putting in something which you haven't spent too much on (in case you change your mind) and which won't self seed (so you can get it out if you don't like it) just so that you have some colour and interest for this year.

You can pick up bedding plants quite cheaply from supermarkets and garden centres now. Keep looking in other people's gardens for ideas, especially shrubs which look good in your own area. Alternatively, you could put in some edibles for this year (you can buy salad plants etc) so that you can enjoy the fruits of your labour.

 

Hello - just a small update since my last posts. I haven't managed to do much extra so far, but as regards the bed, I did the following:

- after letting the bed rest a while, I gave it another dig over
- then added a layer of topsoil on top
- evened it out with a soil rake

Then, as per westwales advice, we have added some shrubs for now. Plus a large bushy thing, which my wife aunt gave us!

Ultimately I want to plant some bulbs for flowers next year, but that will be in the autumn.

So this is how it looks now:



As you can see we have tried to leave gaps for the plants to grow, and also so we can fit in our bulbs later on.

We are pleased with how it has turned out - but its all thanks to the kind advice of you guys! Thanks again.

My target for this year, as well as adding bulbs to the bed shown, is to create a smaller additional flower bed and also create a small 'drying green' (if you will) to house our whirlygig (it will be covered in stones).

I will try and accomplish this in the coming weeks, but there is lots on - eg a friends wedding and building a nursery (for a human baby, not plants haha) etc. But I think these targets are achievable, we didn't want to bite off more than we could chew and sicken ourselves with it.

I have some questions about concrete eding (for the drying area) and lawns, but will post these in appropriate places, so as not to clutter up this results thread.

Thanks again for all the help and encouragement, much appreciated.

 

Hi Gabriel,

You're doing well, it's looking good.
Keep up the good work and don't forget we're all here to help

 

It looks good Gabriel and you'll be surprised at how quickly those plants will fill the bed.