'The end of the gardening year already?' I hear you all say ...yes ...yes it is, and I'm here to give you the rundown on where we ended 2015 with my 'Progress Report'.
As you can see I repurposed the plum slate rocks to be a future pathway to the back of the rockery. I also completed the veggie plot pathway with a third paving slab. The path split the plot nicely, but I always had the nagging feeling that the top left corner of the left sided plot would be hard to access because of the shed wall.
Next, I wanted to create a new seating area in the garden, but wasn't sure where. I had these 2 lonely benches with no table (#FindTheTable) and wanted to find them a good home rather than being shifted around the garden.
[ GARDENING TIP ] Having spent a good amount of time in the garden I learnt the answer to an important question. A question for anyone designing or landscaping their garden, 'When & where do you get full sunlight'? This is an essential thing to know for 2 reasons:
1. Certain plants, veg etc prefer full sun or partial shade, so depending on the kind of plants you want to grow, you will need to know where the sun will be and for how long.
2. To get your tan on!! ...well not for me (I'm black enough), but where will you be able to sit back, relax and enjoy the summer sun. You don't want to be out in your garden on a sunny day after work sitting in the cold/on the dark side of the garden. While equally, if it is too hot, you need an area away from the sun so the heat doesn't become too much.
Basically, learn where the sun rises and sets, and design your garden plan according to this basic routine, and you will maximise your time in your little patch of land called a garden.
So that's how I chose where to put my bench. I knew the evening sun was captured at the back of my garden by the tree, so I cleared the area next to my compost bin and placed it there. I also wanted to prevent it from being a muddy/messy area to sit in, so I put down some builders gravel to keep the mud under control, and because I flat out thought it would look good. My mum had a palm plant inside the house that I thought would look really good outside next to the bench ...and it did (until the winter killed it) This is why it is important to know, which plants are hardy and which ones aren't, when looking to plant in your garden. Hardy is a term that is basically used to explain whether a plant can survive the harsh conditions all year round or not.
If you consider where we left things in 2014, the garden was heading in a good direction, but it just felt like we were getting there very slowly. Between the poor British summer and not being in London I could not get as much done as I wanted to. Plus, with the addition of 'Mount Mudmore' I had to reconsider the whole design of the garden. It was a bit of a conundrum as the garden had clearly come a long way, but I knew without taking some time out to make the garden more functional I would struggle. So between now and the new gardening year in 2016 I spent a lot of time analysing the space I had to work with, and how to really elevate the design.
Some of the plants added to my flower bed were; Lavender, Tomatoes, Wild Thyme, Geraniums and unbeknown to me a rogue Foxglove.
These photos are the potatoes that I planted in 2015, my very first time growing in my new garden. The first image below is the new growth from the beginning of August and the second is the harvest at the end of October. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of the fully grown plant at the time. I also probably could have left them to grow a lot bigger, but as an amateur gardener everything is a learning process. So make mistakes, try different things out, and most important of all... enjoy it!!
