Parks & Gardens in London, the UK & abroad
The garden has an old and quite large damson tree which fruits and which is also enjoyed by the squirrels. But of course it creates shade. And because of the walls on two sides of the garden I am challenged by snails and slugs. I am starting to think what I can do with the space under the tree.
There it had been raining; here the rain was threatening.
The project to renovate the London garden has progressed very slowly – ‘life’ intervened. However, I now have a plan for the garden, and I have started work, stripping out almost everything back to the ground. Shrubs have been cut out, and the overgrown box bushes, and now I am tackling the invasive ivy, a few hours every day.
The north-facing side of the house is a small, paved terrace garden planted with small shrubs and perennials. It is pretty all year round and the planting has worked well. However, the terrace borders on to a field and although I have mainly controlled the ground elder the pesky plant has invaded one of the beds. The Japanese anenomes are also starting to take over – action needed!
The terrace garden is lush in summer.
But by the end of summer it is more like a small jungle!
And here is the problem area. I have dug out the Bergenia ‘Abendglut’ and potted up, but you can see the ground elder, and the failing Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’. Two years ago it flowered prolifically, but the stems fall over and so I am going to replant this area with three ‘Annabelles’, staked, and hope they support one another. I may also take out the Tellima grandiflora which I find untidy and not particularly pretty and replace with Geranium Macrorrhizum ‘Spessart’ because I have quite a few plants from divisions elsewhere.
As I look at these photographs above it is rather ‘sweet and sugary’….
Other than this patch I am happy with the planting. I just need to prune the dogwoods and thin the anenomes and Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’. What will happen to the leftover plants? Well, I have another garden makeover starting, in London!
What do you think?
A year ago the ‘Patio Garden’ was pretty: hot and sunny, the daisies flowered prolifically, as did the iris. But it is now at the end of its fourth season. The rose has grown, the nepeta have become woody, as have the achilleas, and the artemisia just isn’t thriving. The hedge has thickened and together with the larger rose this compartment has changed to warm and partially shaded. Time to change the planting emphasis!