Our garden is east facing, which means that the left hand fence is south facing and just great for tomatoes, figs and other fruits. Our northfacing fence has Alpina-type clematis on it and hostas and Japanese anemones amongst other plants at the base ... really pretty
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
If the small wall is in front of the brick wall, and is at least a foot in depth, I would have a poke around under the white pebbles in case there's soil underneath, before you knock it down. Judging by the photo, it does look like the previous owner built it as a planter. Then you could save yourself some work and plant a climber in it.
Thank you so much for all your advice. I've spent the last couple of weekends stripping out the garden...
Turns out under the decking, paving and mini wall (which turned out to be breezeblocks cemented together with 'prettier' bricks on the outside) was a HUGE LAYER OF POURED CONCRETE. I had a good go at it myself but there's clay bricks under it and THEN soil, so I gave up and called in help. Luckily, the lads I'd asked to come and clear all the rubble are just charging me an extra £50 to finish off the concrete & clay bricks too.
The Warwickshire Rose looks beautiful - I'll give that a go for sure!! Just need to pick ones for the back wall and south facing one - would a jasmine derivative work? I love the scent in the evening.
Maybe paint those fences a pale colour to reflect some light towards the shady side? Or hang mirrors on them, which you can get from Freecycle or charity shops. I had a tiny south facing patio which only got any sun when it was overhead. My workplace dumped out six rectangular, frameless mirrors with fixing holes. Perfect! My dearest screwed them to the wall opposite the house so they looked like window panes, reflected the flowers and doubled the light.
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Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Turns out under the decking, paving and mini wall (which turned out to be breezeblocks cemented together with 'prettier' bricks on the outside) was a HUGE LAYER OF POURED CONCRETE. I had a good go at it myself but there's clay bricks under it and THEN soil, so I gave up and called in help. Luckily, the lads I'd asked to come and clear all the rubble are just charging me an extra £50 to finish off the concrete & clay bricks too.
The Warwickshire Rose looks beautiful - I'll give that a go for sure!!