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downsizing my garden
followinghim
Posts: 7
My garden is getting too much for me now and I am at a loss as to how to simplify it. I feel completely overwhelmed with it . Any ideas and suggestions would be welcome.
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Can you put some photos on. There are people on this forum that are very good at redesigning, though I'm not one of them.
In the sticks near Peterborough
How long have you been there? How big is it?
I can't 'garden' all of ours. It is big - nearly 2 acres - hence my problem and solutions that work on a big scale, but I think the problem and answer can both be scaled down.
There are basically two areas immediately outside the house on either side where I have a bit of lawn, a small patio and some borders, then there is a veg garden. Beyond that I have what I grandly call 'the orchard' - half a dozen fruit trees basically. My OH mows a path through the grass there about once a month in summer (it's not had it's first cut yet) and the rest of it is long grass and whatever else may come - nettles, buttercups, campion, wild carrot, a few feral raspberries that escaped from the veg garden. It's fine. The paths make it look sort of intentional, the wildlife love the weeds, the trees are none the worse for it. There's another big area the other side which is just open field. I'm slowly inhabiting sections of it by planting large shrubs into the long grass, with a clear area around the base mulched until they are established. This is still a work in progress so not sure how it will develop but the plan is to do much the same as the 'orchard' - mow paths let the rest go it's own way. Maybe introduce a few native flowers to add interest - I've started with wild daffs and pheasant eye narcissus, for example. I'm probably going to introduce some cranesbill, possibly wild lupin or columbine.
This was taken in May last year, still early days in the development (hence the pile of wonky slabs in the foreground
), but you can see the principle with some 'real' plants and small lawns in the foreground, the mahoosive beech tree that forms the boundary between 'garden' and 'not garden' then an insane explosion of wild carrot beyond. It's not going to win prizes, but I can manage it, it doesn't feel out of control (though it is), and we can still walk around all of it - there are no areas so overgrown we don't go there.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I downsized in terms of maintenance not size.
I put in more shrubs, herbaceous and ground cover plants. A bit of pruning and deadheading plus a thorough weeding in the spring make life easier.
Just
at your garden raisingirl!
I can only dream!
I suppose if I did now, and it was too much for me, I'd consider planting in drifts and using native wild flowers wherever possible to self seed and cancel out undesirable plants/weeds.
Crocuses, cyclamen, cranesbills, narcissi, snowdrops, mini irises, fritillaries...my mind is boggling
Last edited: 26 April 2017 10:20:24
I also have a large garden, not quite as large as Raisin girl's but follow a similar pattern. Bits nearest the house, and most seen from the windows are more cultivated, the further away bits are wilder.
Many shrubs are easy maintenance - you don't have to follow rigid pruning regimes with things like Philadelphus, Deeutzia and Weigela. They will maybe not have quite as many flowers, but they will still have some, and if they do outgrow their space you can cut back to the ground every few years, perhaps missing that year's blooming, but starting again with fresh growth.
If you cultivate wild flowers, or garden versions of them, they will happily mix and match, seed themselves around in their favoured places and thug it out for world domination
Carol Klein's book 'Wild Flowers - Nature's Own to Garden Grown' should inspire you
Like RG, I mow pathways through my 'meadow' areas so it looks deliberate and the contrast between short and long grass is nice.
Other areas are not always grassed as such but I only weed out a few undesirables such as nettles near walkways, docks and hogweed where they are out of scale or rosebay willow herb and ground elder when they invade beyond their alloted areas. This garden style is fairly cheap but very informal.
If you need a more formal look then it may initially involve both more cost and labour, perhaps to make raised beds or create a level are of paving or gravel. Maintenance is also more important as weedy flags or gravel and scruffy pots often look worse than the 'sweet disorder in the dress' of a somewhat neglected 'wild' garden. If you enjoy your pots though, and perhaps don't mind weed-killering the hard landscape areas it could be suitable for you, especially if you already have a formal layout.
If you can afford to get someone else to cut the grass or occasionally cut back shrubs etc it would take away some of the pressure and allow you to relax and enjoy doing the bits you can.
Last edited: 26 April 2017 10:27:23
'sweet disorder in the dress' brilliant image
What a quick response. Thank you for taking an interest. Our back garden is some 30 ft wide and 20 fence panels long. The photos are of what was originally the Long Border and the top woodland area of the garden. I won't depress you with the rest yet
Ideally I would like to clear the long border and extend the lawn but have some shrubs like hydrangea . I just need for it to be easier to maintain.
It's beautiful
But I suppose with a border that long, a lot of work to keep it looking that good. I see your point now.
Could you clear areas of long border, leaving choice, easy to maintain shrubs within it and grass around them?
Woodland drift plants around the back, where your wooded area is now, as mentioned above by several people (and me)...and depending on your soil type and exposure, perhaps a dry garden in the hottest part - with non invading grasses, sedums, hardy geraniums, sempervivums, coreopsis, etc...planted with gravel around, along with some good ground coverers and smaller self seeders?
Do you have an area currently in which to sit, which could also be extended and planted up with large shrubs, feature/architectural plants?
Thinking of astelias, Phormiums, grasses again, all very easy and take up space.
Could one area nearer the house become a raised veggie bed?
Thank you Jess
yes, I love your ideas and would love to keep the shrubs in the long border and have more grass with daffodils and crocus coming up through it. The problem is that I planted some woodruff in the garden and it has spread and also the squirrels, bless their little hearts, just love to plant nuts and forget about them so I have an invasion on little trees coming through. My health problems are subject h at the moment that I get tired so easily and I am also my husbands carer. I was thinking that the more grass I have, the mowing of it would help keep the little nut trees from growing?
Not my words, Jess, but Robert Herrick's. He was talking about dress, but I think the poem could easily apply to gardens too
That garden looks perfect for cultivating the wild and natural style. You wouldnt need to 'clear' any border, just make spaces for an additional shrub or two and add in some more woodlandy plants if you haven't got them already, such as hardy geraniums, Welsh poppies, Alchemilla mollis, aquilegias, foxgloves, Astrantia etc and let things get on with it.Self seeders are your friends for this look, and mowing the grass will resrict their spread to some extent elsewhwere.
Forget edging as such, just have a mown edge and let alchemillas and forget-me-nots and the like blur the line. You could let the grass grow longer in parts to allow more wild flowers chance to show their colours in spring and then tidy it again before it looks too messy later.
Last edited: 26 April 2017 11:50:41