Vocal Voices

Every year at Easter time I take off either the week before or the week after Easter to do whatever major spring renovation work there is to be done in the garden.

This year I'll be replacing my raised vegetable bed (the one now has totally rotted away ) and also redoing the front garden which at the moment is just one large rectangular area of lawn with a border running along the right fence line. I am thinking of reshaping the lawn into a 8 shape to get some curves into it to break the squareness and then planting the borders up with a few plants that I already have growing in tubs (bought really cheap and small from Morrisons last year and now they're at the perfect growing size).

What - if any - design / shape is your garden?

Because we were in a new build, the front garden is small, and it was laid by Bovis to grass on (pretty much) builders rubble, so there isn't a great deal you can do with it. It's a rectangle with a diagonal slab path to the front door.

With the house on one side, the garage side on t'other, and an 8' fence along a third side, it doesn't get a lot of sun, or indeed rain due to overhanging eaves. We've dug out a small rectangle from the grass in front of the downstairs window, which harbours a sage (which has grown over the years and threatens to block the front door), a hydrangea which came to us as a house plant, but took to the outdoors re-location and has thrived) and a large number of small purple violets (which have madly self-propagated and currently are providing a colourful display).

We had problems in the early days with teenagers climbing over the fence and using our garden as a short cut to the road off the estate. We've countered this by planting a red robinia hedge against it that now exceeds the height of the fence!

So, nothing special, really .....

Our front is all gravel now, edged by low iron railings, with paving to the front door both from the pavement and the drive, with two red robin trees to the front and a couple of other small trees down the side.....not much different can be done with that really. We had the gravel laid to replace the grass which was full of dandelions - it was more weeds than grass so it was either returf or gravel it I do have a hanging basket though, and some small tubs with plants and grasses in. I put the tubs on top of the manholes, both to hide them and to mark them out in case they needed to be accessed

The back has a tiny bit of paving behind my patio doors where I have a big jumble of pots and tubs with flowers, plants and herbs, then it is all grass apart from the raised deck which is in the far corner by the garage....we do have a few small trees, a couple behind the decking and one in the far corner, and a rose bush, and some clematis and honeysuckle on the garage wall, but it a small garden with no room for anything else! Luckily for us we have the use of D's large greenhouse for our veggies and salad plants We are in the fortunate position however of it being SW facing, so it is a lovely little suntrap, plus being on a corner plot despite being small it is larger than most of the neighbours' garden

Your plans sound nice Ria, good luck and do post some photos

Our garden goes all round the house.

It's much bigger at the back as we have the pool, lots of fruit trees and zillions of plant pots and aloe vera shaped monsters.

Thank goodness the couple who built this house designed the garden and plants to be easy enough maintenance otherwise Don would be Alan Titchmarsh mark 2 - and I don't have the boobs to be his Charlie Dimmock!!

Ours is designed for a mountain goat.

It's steep up here in these hills!

The garden we look out on is a communal garden for the Lodge, but is a lovely one and we have been able to
potter in the bed outside our french door and it is now colourful, with Primulas and Primroses (my favourite
wild flower). We've planted between the shrubs three groups of tulips which are now in bud. We have also
hung a bird-feeder in a tree and have noted many different species of birds (plus a squirrel).


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How nice that you've been able to customise your own little part of the garden Aggers

My tulips have bloomed and died back now!

glad you can go out in the garden this next week
and relax
iv got gravel in the back garden and i have to keep zapping the weeds
it seems to need a good rake over at times as well
my tulips are all out (love them)
waiting for eldest to come and put extra hight panels above existing
fence at the back
had that bamboo stuff for a few years but the gales this winter wrecked it
but my clematis that i thought i had lost is back in bud
aggers im gad you have a bit of garden space makes such a difference

That's good news about your clematis Saundra, I over pruned mine too but it still looks a bit over pruned

We haven't got a front garden as such, just a patch of gravel underneath the front window as our house is virtually right on the footpath (hardly anyone walks past though so it's not a problem). Being on the corner though we have quite a large patch of land at the side. When we moved in the builders had planted it with all manner of litter-catcher plants so we got them all out and turfed it. We left in the two silver birch trees though. In the border surrounding it we've planted various evergreen shrubs. Oh, I have a terracotta pot with Spring flowers in it by the front door.