My Garden – a work in progress

It is a very exciting time of year at the moment. Things are happening in my garden, seeds are sprouting, trees are blossoming and everything seems to be bursting with life.

When we moved into our first grown up, family home in October 2014, the garden (as you can see in the picture above) was a blank canvas; a patchy green slightly sloping rectangle of grass. The garden, and its potential, were one of the things I first fell in love with about this house. I grew up in the countryside with a huge garden, and had really missed having my own green space while we lived in a flat as a young couple. I couldn’t imagine my baby not having their own garden to toddle around in,  so we started house hunting, with a garden at the top of my list.

Eventually after a few false starts we found our house and once we moved in set about turning it into our home. In the garden we dug borders and started planting. I was very lucky to be given lots of plants from my mum’s garden, including some Hydrangea cuttings, lots of Forgetmenots and Cosmos. Where we had turned over the soil at the back of the garden,  we were delighted to see that a whole forest of Poppies sprang up and bloomed throughout the summer last year.

As the Summer drew to a close we decided to paint the fence and settled on ‘Coastal Blue’ as I wanted something brighter and more interesting than the brown that all our neighbours seemed to have. We have also added some trees to the garden – a Cherryalmond which has beautful frilly blossom, and an apple tree.

Below are some pictures of the garden this year. It still obviously needs a lot of work, and we are still recovering from the fence blowing down. Instead of putting up a new fence, we decided to plant a hedge. Thinking about the hedges I used to walk past down tiny country lanes on my way to school each day we chose a selection of native hedgerow plants including Hornbeam, Guilder Rose, Hawthorn, Field Maple, Dog Rose and Wild Privet. These will hopefully grow happily into a lovely, interesting hedge that will provide colour and structure all year round, as well as being really good for local wildlife. Last year I also planted Sweetpeas, Cornflowers and Wallflowers (ready for the following year). This year we are hoping to create an even more spectacular show with a living teepee covered in peas and runner beans. We have planted more sweet peas, and we are having a go at sunflowers as well. My little man is loving having so many pants to water!

I can’t wait to get out there each day to potter about and see how all the plants are growing and changing. Even more exciting is the fact that my little man absolutely loves being out there too, and even though he is not even 2 years old yet, he has a great understanding of the basics of how plants work. He walked outside yesterday and said ‘Ah bootful day! Smell pretty flowers!’ and I couldn’t have agreed more. He loves to ‘dig-dig-dig’ and would happily spend all day watering the flowers. Being outside in your very own little piece of nature is wonderful. I can honestly say there is nowhere else I would rather be. If you have a garden get out there! I’d love to see some photos of your green spaces too!