Ever Changing Garden

Just wondered, after a nice bottle of Malbec, how members gardens have evolved over the years. Mine started as a general area with a few plants and an area for soaking up the sun. It changed to a large shed, more plants with a leaning to shrubs, an area to soak up the sun and to cremate parts of animals whilst drinking alcohol. Next phase was trying the cottage garden. I crammed as many plants into the borders and into pots as I could get my hands on plus having the area for bbq and drinking. Next comes the kids. We moved. From a garden where the soil was amended and worked with copious amounts of organic matter, to a larger, spring oriented garden that was barren during summer, solid chalk 4-6 inches below the surface. Kids get older. No spikey plants, soft leaves, trampoline and large above ground swimming pool. Raised borders, loads of compost, the introduction of plants grown from seeds that had fallen in my luggage after foreign holidays. Discovery of the amount of plants that are hardy despite looking exotic. Kids grow up, leave home. More room for palms, bananas, cycads, etc. Garden full on thai jungle/ steptoes yard. Removal of a lot of climbers to facilitate room for bamboo and a lot of spikeys. More mature plants like palms, cordyline, phormium and bananas taking over the garden. Decisions have been made to reduce labour intensive plants. More decisions have been discussed with SWMBO about possibly having to move because of ill health as we(she) get older. A return to more floriferous plants rather than shades of green to 'brighten it up'. This is just a quick forty odd years worth of my garden. I'm sure when we're forced to move I'll have to re evaluate what gets planted, but I'm sure things will be lower maintenance than what I do now. I foresee the lack of ability lugging 60 plus pots up to 30 litres into the greenhouse every Autumn and the lack of interest in producing a summer display with the hundreds of bedding plants. I do foresee Hardy palms and slower growing plants and a chipped bark soil covering, but hopefully the latter part of this post is a few years off

 

We have been making our Garden user friendly lately and just concentrating on enjoying the garden rather than frantic must haves.(ok Greenhouse exception) Mostly grass of a farmland type but many features for interest and leisure.. but the dip pool and the two ponds add a relaxing feel to the garden and various flower beds some raised and some full of weeds...we have an outdoor table tennis set up and a netball net/ post a badminton place that always causes more laughter than points. so a Garden most of all that we can enjoy..just make it easier for your needs.. very basic but essential....

 

I tried to keep a record of how my garden here developed over the last few years by posting videos on youtube. This playlist tracks the development of the area just outside the living room window which was the first part of the garden I started planting. The site was just a field used for grazing before the girlfriend got the house built almost seven years back now. Happy enough with the way it has developed so far and made some space for some more planting already for this year and got some seeds I want to try for Christmas so looking forward to the weather warming up a bit and allowing a bit more time outdoors. Got second hand double glazed windows as well at the end of last year so this year's big project will be a proper greenhouse.

Happy gardening!