Calling shovetheholly and other gardeners! Help!

[SkodaLabia]

I have a very weirdly shaped garden. I've posted about it before but since then it's got weirder thanks to the discovery of a second patio under a deck that we recently removed.
I'm at a loss as to how to work with the shape. It's short and wide and faces due West.

I really want more privacy, and anything that could help to minimise the noise from a busy road, but at the moment dealing with the shape has me defeated!

[shovetheholly]

I think there are several considerations that are sort of being smudged together in that article.

The first us clumping. Even in a small garden, for smaller plants you ideally need more than one of something to get quick impact and coherence (obviously this is different for your big feature plants where you only need one!) - I tend to go with clumps of three.

The second issue is colour. Borders tend to look better if there is some restraint on colour. This doesn't mean it can't be bright, just that using every colour in the rainbow tends to risk the dog's dinner look. Bear in mind leaf colour as well as flower colour. I have a gold leaf plant in my silver leaf front garden and it looks awful. It's coming out as soon as I get a moment.

The third issue is texture and height- I'm not sure these can be thought about separately because both are so integral to structure. Beth Chatting is a master at blending the two.

The best thing I find is to research, research, research and make a list of plants that fit your scheme. Do Work out how many you need on a scaled plan. Do all the careful prep work on your beds. Then, when you've actually got the plants, lay them out on the ground while still in pots and look at it for days and days. (Put large things in place to represent your higher stuff if you are moving things - I use canes). Things will happen. You will find bits of your design don't work so well, that something needs to move forward and something else back, that you need more of a splash of colour here or there, thatif you bravely move the high thing away from the periphery, it looks better. If you don't take the time over this bit, it is invariably counterproductive as you just need to move everything later (voice of experience of screwing up!!).

[SkodaLabia]

Thanks holly, have you considered therapist as a career? Or being one of those people who in films tells the stewardess how to land the plane because the pilot in unconscious?

I am going to make a list. No dog's dinner here, no siree.

[AstrantiaMajor]

As well as a lists I made an album of screen shots from Pinterest and gardening sites.

Scrolling through the photos and moving 2 or three onto the same page helped me see what worked. I have kept lots of screen shots of things that I love but don't have room or budget for. Like you, I eventually found that the same type of planting kept going into my favourites album.

[shovetheholly]

Ha! I would be the world's worst therapist. The client would talk for 10 mins, then I would be all "I am sure we could discuss this while we go in the garden"

Wise words from Astrantia!! The thing is, this is a really personal process. You're putting a bit of you into this, and that is as individual as any interior design. Working out how to reflect what you like in organic form is a whole process of self-discovery!!

[SkodaLabia]

I'm not sure I like what I'm discovering! If I say so myself I'm really good at interior design, but this is doing my head in! Have now attempted a rectangular lawn going up the page, so its top right hand corner echos the corner of the patio and the newly envisioned place for a bench at the top right. I think it will look ok.

Can't work out whether the put the good side of the lawn edging towards the grass or the beds/path, given that it's cheaper to fill up the lawn with topsoil than it is to fill the beds I'm tempted to put the good side to the path, and disguise the inside with soil (and keep the grass long!)

I feel a bit overwhelmed at how our of my depth I feel and how much money I've already spent, to achieve so little.

I think the way to go could be vast amounts of bark chips so the huge spaces with no plants at least look intentional, while I wait for the things to grow. Even small gardens take a lot of plants, don't they?

[SkodaLabia]

I'm also realising I've made a mistake with the trellis round the patio, to match what's on top of the wall I've used privacy trellis, which means it's hard to see the rest of the garden. I was following that idea of 'don't see all your garden at once' thing. I actually could cry a bit. I wish I could just pay someone a heap of cash to sort it out.

If I settle on the lawn where it is do you think it's a good idea to get someone to put cobbles or something round the edge? That's going to give a more landscaped finish than my wonky efforts with these chuffing half logs. The thing will still be on a slope, but at least it would look intentional.

I'm so sorry to be getting emotional and bloody needy about this, I just want it to be lovely and it's too steep a learning curve with slopes, a patio that's a weird shape, a height difference, screening issues, sea winds and trying to do it all cheaply.

[AstrantiaMajor]

We have all been there. You need gin, tea and cake and a big breath. This time of year it all looks so bare and every mistake is magnified I would say yes to the bark for a quick cover-up and hiding mistakes.

I found that paper plans never really translate because it is one dimensional and you cannot see the future spread and height.
Lawn edging good side out and fill with soil. It will fill out by spring. No to the cobbles. They are not cheap and those things should be the last to go down. If it was me I would cover with bark. Then concentrate on a small area of planting. Once you get one small area the way you want it the rest will slowly fall not place. I understand the desire to get it right quickly, but finding out what does not work is how you learn what does.

I once had a wall painted to match my blinds. It was vile. Then I spent a whole week looking for wall wall units, paintings or large plants to disguise it. Then I realised I was just accenting the horrible fuschia pink wall. So I ditched the blinds, painted over the wall and started again. What I am trying to say is don't spend more money trying to hide things that you don't like until you have enough things that you do.

Can you post pictures because there are so many,people on here with lots more knowledge than me.🍰🍸🍰🍸🍰🍸🍰🍸🍰🍸🍰🍸and a deep breath

[SkodaLabia]

Thanks Astrantia. I know everything looks better when it has plants softening it, you're right.

Yes to the problem of designing on paper. It's SO hard to manage slopes and uneven angles in the abstract.

I'm thinking what I should do is an L-shaped lawn around the patio, boxed in by railway sleepers so we can fill it up with soil to make it level. That would then leave all the beds at a lower level, and perhaps I can fashion some sort of focal point in the top right with planting.

At least I'm getting to grips with what I like in terms of planting. .

[AstrantiaMajor]

Planing an odd shaped garden is hard, different levels and slopes add enormously to the problems. Then adding in bits of patio at all angles, I am not surprised it is stressing you.

You seemed to have achieved so much already. I wonder if altering the lawn further is more hard work than it is worth. Do you think possibly leave it as it is at the moment then cutting half moon and crescents or triangles into it later to be planted with your grasses and some quick growing annuals.

[SkodaLabia]

The scribblings of a mad woman!

[SkodaLabia]

Today is a new day. And fortunately a rainy one, so I get a break from gardening.

Re-read your advice Astrantia, and it's great. I'm going to do five things:

spend some money getting the lawn looking good (I can sow and prep it, but get someone to put down a sleeper frame)

set out a bark chip path

swap the trees as the cherry will ultimately give a better canopy as a focal point for sitting

Make a list of the plants for my new foliage palette, the good thing about this that I've found some good pics online combining fatsia, acer and ferns, all of which I have.

Plant up one very small area and bark chips the fuck out of the rest of it.

[shovetheholly]

Awwww skoda you're doing so well. Please remember these are HUGE jobs you're undertaking - the kind of thing that would take a couple of labourers who have done it dozens of times before hours on end.

I think it's really stressful if you try to rush these things. I know there's this urgent desire to get things looking better, to have a space that is lovely, but I would say that if you are doing the work yourself around other commitments, then you need to give yourself the gift of the time needed to do the job! It took me an entire summer - from March to September - to get my back garden into a state where I could even begin to start planting. (I had a lot of concrete to remove, and I did it by hand). It looked like a dog's dinner for months, but it was worth it.

With the lawn edging- think about maintenance. You need to be able to get a mower over it, right? So the very last thing you want is any kind of edging that comes up above the surface of the turf. Your mower will hit it, or you won't be able to get right to the edge and will have to do that bit painstakingly with shears, which will make you swear. A lot. If you love sleepers, then make sure they're treated and sink them into the ground. However, you may be better off with a product like Everedge.

For planting - if you give yourself more time, you're also giving yourself greater opportunities to find things cheap. Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons do a LOT of the kind of things you are looking for, for a fraction of the price of a garden centre. But they're not all in at once, you have to hunt them down. Furthermore, with time you can look in the search & rescue sections of garden centres and find things that work with your scheme - I think most of us on the forum have things we've found this way!! You can also propagate easier stuff from seed so that you have lots of plants for a couple of quid.

The other thing is that it's a mistake to think a garden is ever 'finished'. Things outgrow spaces, or they come to the end of shorter lives, or get diseased, or you find they are in the wrong place and need more/less light, water, etc. Your mini-ecosystem will be constantly evolving. The good news about this is that, if you make a mistake with the organic stuff, it can usually be undone fairly cheaply and easily. Where it gets more expensive is where you're dealing with hard landscaping materials, which is why it's a good idea to take some time over that stuff until you are happy.

[shovetheholly]

To cheer you up - here's my garden before and during the summer of landscaping! That's my friend Tim in the first picture - we'd actually got rid of miles and miles of brambles by this point, so this is actually an improvement on what was there originally. It was like this for months while my husband and I mattocked up concrete paths.

[AstrantiaMajor]

When I was doing my garden, I would wake at 2 in the morning churning and churning things over. I would make tea and do Internet searches, scribble on endless bits of paper. I lost more sleep over that bloody garden than I did over the kids. Now the garden has finished I should be able to sleep. Except last night I woke In a total panic as large, I mean huge boulder were being delivered onto your grass and rolling down the slope breaking the fence. So pleased to wake up this morning knowing it was a dream and not a premonition.

[JT05]

Amazing amount of work you've done there, shove. How far have you got towards your goal. Please post more pictures. Inspiring!

[shovetheholly]

I think everyone on the forum is sick of seeing my May garden photos (I LOVE MAY THOUGH!!)

This is it last year.

[shovetheholly]

(There are about 5 years, roughly, between the earthworks pictures and that one. Virtually nothing in my garden was bought at full price - things have been grown from cuttings, from the search & rescue section of the garden centre, or from seed. I'm on a really tight budget! DH and I did the hard landscaping over weekday evenings - we were both working full time and it was very de-stressing!)

[AstrantiaMajor]

That looks amazing.

[shovetheholly]

Astrantia - like you, I was DREAMING about it! It is funny how much it gets under your skin!

I am now having to rethink large sections of it because of work on the house. At present, I'm just clearing everything where the building work will be, but there will inevitably be quite a lot of re-landscaping to do afterwards. I'm hoping I don't have to move the path, but I have a horrible feeling it might be necessary. Having watched you make the tough decisions about your space gives me hope that I might be able to replan it to be even better. If it was up to me, I would probably chicken out of the build, but our kitchen is literally the size of a cupboard and falling to pieces so DH is firm that we need more space.

[SkodaLabia]

That is gorgeous, and I can see why you were so keen for me to get rid of the lawn!

Re lawn edging, I'd be filling the sleepers to the top, so they would act as a mowing strip. The reason I'm thinking sleepers (the pre-treated shallow ones) is that they would help raise the lower end so the lawn is flat. And handily provide a seating edge.
I have a really light manual mower and I actually like mowing!

[SkodaLabia]

Do let me know if I can be of emotional assistance, holly, I'm MARVELLOUS at all things kitchen and builder related.

[shovetheholly]

I am going to need all the help I can get skoda. I'm absolutely bricking it! Waiting for proper prices for the whole job at the moment... I expect I may faint with horror when they arrive.

[coxsorangepippin]

Just to say, this thread is a lovely distraction from loathsome pregnantness. I have a tiny balcony so reading about your garden's progress is a vicarious pleasure!

[SkodaLabia]

You're welcome coxs! Very pleased my trauma is proving useful.

Are you getting an extension holly?

[shovetheholly]

cox - hope you're not feeling too dreadful! Pregnancy can be SO tough. Hope your balcony is big enough to fit a nice sunny pot of daffs to cheer you up.

skoda - Yes, we're hoping to start work in the next few months... the design is done, planning is done, it's just the builder is being VERY slow about giving us a proper price. So feeling very frustrated at the moment.