It's happening!

[GinAndOnIt]

At last!

I posted last summer about our front garden, and the huuuuuge overgrown mass of lots of bushes which is stuck right in the middle. Well, today, our neighbour has moved all the horse fencing, FIL has turned up with the forklift, the bonfire is lit and DP is armed with the chainsaw. Hurray!

I'm posting the 'before' pictures again, in the hope I can follow up with the 'after' pictures this afternoon

she has a very bad case of flu' at the moment Gin , so not posting. I'm sure she will be back soon :)
So no pond eh? I think it would make lovely seating area .

Oh no! Poor shove - I think we need some Spring in the air to get rid of all these germs now, Winter has dragged on long enough. Hope she's feeling better soon.

Bumped into a neighbour in the village a few days ago who said she is having a clear out of her garden and has loads of flowers that need new homes if I want them - I obviously said yes!

Am now wondering whether to have a sort of U shaped bed with something in the middle - a bird bath or something maybe? Next door have lots of bird feeders so we do get lots of birds up here.

GIN!!!!!

WOW JUST WOW!! It's huuuuuuuge!! And lovely! And light!

And I love the wiggle on your path. Utterly charming!

So much potential! There's just loads you could do with an area like that. I bet you could have a pond AND a seating area AND a bed and still have space to spare!

One idea- if your DP is adamant about not digging a pond, then you could always get a mini 'pond in a pot' - I got one for my grandmother and it really looks nice. They are big enough to get a bit of wildlife into the garden, and they have the advantage that they sit proud of the ground, so there are no worries about falling in! Like this:

www.watersidenursery.co.uk/shop/container-ponds.html

You must be SO happy!

Oh and I am getting better by the day - even managed to Skype into some reading groups over the last couple of days (though it has to be said I had even less of sense to contribute than usual!)

Yay, you're back! Flu is just horrid, I hope you aren't feeling too fed up.

I love those little container ponds! They are really sweet. And I reckon if I hid one or two between plants, DP wouldn't even notice

The only thing is, we are on a tilt, so it would probably need a proper support built underneath to keep it level.

Another thing: DP got a bit loader-happy and decided to get rid of the last bush in the row near the house (it was huge and he said he'd cut it right back, but I turned away for a second and he was pulling the whole lot out with the loader ) - the bush was outside our lounge window so it has made a difference to light in the lounge, but it looks a bit odd with nothing there. Anyone have any ideas what we should do with that spot? I did wonder whether i could move one of the other three bushes over to spread them out, and plant in between, but I'm not sure that would be hugely possible....

(Sorry for the unclear pics.. am trying to avoid Storm Doris!)

gin - I am pondering your second lovely new space! It would seem like a shame to put anything too high there and cut out your view down to the rest of the garden - not just for light but to enjoy the space you have, if you see what I mean. So I wonder if the answer might be open it out - to move the other bushes to further down and create some kind of a focal point for the eye towards that end fence so that you can enjoy the whole space and not just the margin towards your house??

It depends a bit how this part of your garden relates to the rest - you have such a lovely lot of space that I struggle to imagine sometimes how it all fits together! Is this your veg patch area? Or is that over the other side?

It's a tricky space because it's so long but quite thin! I think you've got a good idea there with moving all the tall things from that front strip. I could add them at different area in the beds I've already dug, or actually even in the bit at the bottom of the garden which needs to be cleared.

The veg patch bit is out the back, so not this bit. The original veg patch was going to be there, adjacent to pro-gardening neighbour's veg patch, but I think we get better sun out the back (and it's nearer kitchen!)

When we get rid of the pine tree, I want to leave one bit of trunk in the ground, and create an arch over the path connecting to the rose hip plant the other side.... then maybe grow a climbing rose up the leftover trunk?! Getting a bit technical now! I think an Arch half way up the path would just be a nice bit of interest without restricting our view from house down to the driveway. I am overly keen on arches

I'm struggling to articulate my feelings, but I think it would be nice for you to be able to look out onto something that feels like one space, instead of two subdivided ones, IYSWIM. I'm not saying you have to see the whole area, like some kind of Schonbrunn palace type setup, but having a feel for a whole would be lovely. One way of doing that would be to move half that bush on the right, so you're effectively creating a frame for a kind of mini-vista (the sort of thing Capability Brown did, but at the scale of mid-height shrubs rather than majestic oaks!)

There's a programme with Alan Titchmarsh about recreating a Capability Brown landscape at Belvoir Castle (I think) and it's quite useful for explaining some of the ways he framed views, some of which can be scaled back to be suitable domestically (not suggesting you get a digger and start creating your own artificial lake or anything!)

I'm really conflicted about your pine. Before, I think I only saw pictures of it from close up or with the other bushes there, so I couldn't quite understand why it was staying. Now I can see it properly I can totally understand why you wanted to retain it. It is large, but in a rather magnificent way. But maybe it's just a bit TOO big for your plans? If so, I do love the idea of retaining and using the trunk.

Am 18mins in to that video and starting to see what you mean - will have a cup of tea later and watch the rest... (I am also varnishing our floors this week, because you can never have too many projects on the go can you?! )

I was chatting to DP about it last night, and he thinks it would be really hard to move those bushes and keeping them alive in the new spot - he thinks the root balls will be way too big for us to shift? (Um hello? Have you forgotten about the ginormous thing you shifted last week?!) - any pearls of wisdom with that? I start most garden related sentences now with 'you know the lovely mumsnet lady who send me seeds? Well she said.....'

The pine tree sadly is too huge I think. One of the reasons I wanted it to stay, was because my old nanny children who came to visit all seemed so drawn to it. Every single one would stop at the tree on the way to the front door and climb on it/hunt for pine cones/sit in it. It just seemed like such a lovely little hub for imagination! I just think it's in the wrong place - if it was on the edge, it wouldn't seem so bad, but it's just not right being smack bang in the middle. Next door also aren't able to plant very much adjacent to it due to it sucking all the soil nutrients!

I'm looking out through the kitchen window now, it is blocking a great big chunk of view - taking it out wouldn't give us any better of a view of our own garden, but it would make the garden feel longer as we would be able to see the tops of trees behind and in the distance - it does split the garden in two at the moment, doesn't it.

Next door have a wooden arch directly in front of their path to front door, and have a mixture of heights planted around that arch - then I'm guessing through that arch they can see right through to their beds, then their veg patch, then their lawn area.

Blimey gin, you're so busy! Varnishing floors is a tough job as well! Hope you're not too knackered!

Do you know what the bushes are? This might make a difference. Large things can be moved, but it's more work - to state the obvious, the bigger the plant, the bigger the rootball, the heavier the job.

My project, as soon as I am able to wield a spade, is to move two things in the garden - a viburnum which is well over 2 metres tall and a fatsia which is about 1.6 metres. I expect both to survive, and will be having stern words with them if they do not. I will carefully dig out as much of the rootball as I can, and I'll be trying to keep the soil as packed around the roots as is possible so I'm disturbing the relationship between roots and soil as little as I can - this is much easier on my wet, heavy clay than on a free-draining soil. I'll make a big hole to put them into, with loads of manure in the bottom. Then I'll get DH to help me lift them onto a tarpaulin and shift them to their new spots - this is definitely a two person job, the soil weighs a LOT. I can tell you now that I will be repeatedly yelling at DH not to step on the neighbouring dicentra/daffodils/candelabra primulas... which he will nonetheless manage to trample into oblivion in spite of my warning.

I'll then chuck gallons on water on them. They may well need some water during really hot weather, as it can take a whole year for roots to properly re-establish. I'll probably prune the viburnum to reduce water stress and give it a helping hand too.

Doing one of them will probably take me over an hour - the digging out is patient, muddy and hard work because it has to be done so carefully (destroying stuff is much easier and more fun!), making the new hole properly big and free is hard work too. But I am quite slow and liable to be distracted!

Sooooo... I reckon you could probably do the same with yours, provided they aren't some of the small number of things that hate being transplanted from spot to spot (that's why I asked what they are at the start).

About the pine... one of the things I'm learning now (after making 10 years of mistakes about the placing of plants - mistakes that continue, hence the need to move the afore-mentioned fatsia and viburnum) is that a lot of really effective design is about two kinds of relation: how the garden relates to the external surrounding views (or doesn't in my case - I am desperately trying to hide external buildings that are really ugly!!) and how your eye is drawn through it internally by careful framing of some aspects and hiding of others. So what I'm now trying to achieve now (emphasis on trying - I'm not there yet!) in my small garden is a framing of the viewpoint from the main angles of visual approach - so there are places where you can see all the way down, and places where you can't. I'm not clever enough to have worked out the principles behind this, so I just muddle through using trial & error I guess something that 'blocks' a view - like your pine - is great if it's in the right place - but a complete pain if it's not!!

Love your description of the pine as a 'hub for imagination'! That's so true! I used to use plants as landmarks when I was little!

Varnishing is finally finished, hurrah! Although your description of your DH trampling on your flowers despite you warning him, is a bit like how I've been warning DP not to step on the wet varnish and he's done it anyway ()

I've not a clue what the bushes are. I'm trying to remember what they were like during summer... one definitely had big yellow flowers. They were really nice actually. I've got a feeling there was also a sort of dark pink spray on there somewhere too. The tall, thin one was just green I think, although that might have been the pink one... And the one next to path has waxy green leaves with little light green dot 'flowers' - we have another plant in the garden which looks the same but with red 'dots' instead - perhaps I'd be better showing a picture, my descriptions aren't the best

They are all on a carpet of ivy which has tangled up into them all too which is a bit annoying. I love the look of ivy but it doesn't half take over!

I love viburnums. I've just googled 'fatsia' too - what a lovely interesting plant! I love the leaves.

The bush with the yellow flowers had flowers that look similar to this, if I remember rightly.

That looks like a Rose of Sharon / St John's Worth to me... Pretty but grow like weeds!

Over a number of renovations I have come to the view that moving big stuff is far more trouble than it's worth (unless it's something especially precious in which case take lots of cuttings first). It takes a lot of work to do and in aftercare, often fails, you can probably buy a new one for a pittance, and if you go for something new you may well find something even better or a better variety of the same thing.

I don't know your gardening experience but with a garden that size I'd get into propagation - take cuttings or divide everything you like, it's an amazingly cheap way of getting lots of plants and a bit of repetition will give you some rhythm.

I am itching to put a wide border full of giant perennials on either side of your lovely windy path...

That's a st johns wort (hypericum). I am growing one from a cutting off my dad's old monster one, which he is threatening to execute.

Rue it is certainly overgrown like a weed at the moment! Along with everything else in the garden

Purple my gardening experience is precisely zilch. We moved here a year ago and it's the first house I've had with a proper garden - no one had looked after the garden for about 10 years prior to us moving in, so so far all that's been done really is trying to clear up everything that's overgrown.

My neighbour (same one who offered a load of flowers the other day) has just told me to check her garden as she has a load of rose bushes bagged up to give away if I want any... shall I do it and decide what to do with them later? I've already got seven roses scattered about.... too many?

Mrs how have you taken the cuttings? I think that's looking like an easier option, and as you say Purple, I can spread the one plant over a few different areas then.

Well it was a bit hit and miss, I'm a learner myself. First you need rooting powder or gel, and get some vermiculite (my dad prescribes a mix of 50 50 potting compost and vermiculite.)

I found bits where there was a little side shoot, and used a stanley knife to cut from the top of the shoot towards the root, down the stem, then pulled. The idea is to get a shoot with a long strip peeled off the main stem, so you have lots of exposed plant insides for the rooting stuff to work on,

Strip off all but the top few leaves, dip in the gel or powder, stick in the pot, water, cross fingers and wait.

The St John's Wort (not worth, blimmin autocorrect!) spreads by itself anyway... You really do have to be careful of them. I've seen advice to crop them right back every year.

I am also looking for ideas to fill my old leylandii spaces, but am planning to take it slowly for a year or two to let the soil rest a bit (and hopefully let the stumps rot down slightly!! As they came out it was apparent there was an actual raised bed at the back for them, which they had massively overgrown, so I think this summer I'll try and rebuild/extend that and then look to plant next spring. Means a sad couple of years for the garden though!!

I've sort of guessed that anything still living in this garden is generally a stubborn bugger and will therefore be high maintenance to avoid it taking over

I've just been and rummaged through the neighbour's roses up for grabs, and have somehow come away with seven more

Perhaps I should get rid of all the bushes along that row and plant roses instead

7 MORE ROSES!! Gin you're on a roll!

And your experience isn't 'zilch' at all - you are the proud creator of a brilliant bed already!

There are many kinds of hypericum (St Johns Wort). book always makes me jealous every year because she has a lovely one, whereas I have this rotten thing that a previous owner of the house probably planted in the the 1970s that refuses to die in spite of my most murderous efforts. Yours looks lovely - I think it might be the variety called 'Hidcote', but not sure?

Why not try a combination of moving it and cuttings for backup? I think I'd be tempted to try heel cuttings when it gets a bit warmer, since you have quite a mature bush there. Basically, instead of snipping off a twig cleanly and potting it, you're looking to get a kind of 'hang nail' of bark. Info here: living.thebump.com/hypericum-propagation-9597.html

shove I can't resist a free plant and let's not forget - that bed was dug in Winter. We are yet to see if anything will actually grow in it

I think the yellow flower bush is large enough to experiment a few different ways of replanting, so I'll do that. DP chopped the tall, thin bush down yesterday (saying it was a Hawthorn.. isn't that a hedgerow plant?!) and we're pretty sure the bush on the end next to the path is another hawthorn with a japonica growing through it too. So I haven't looked properly underneath it all yet, but I think I want to try and cut out the Hawthorn, and then shape the japonica a bit better. And find somewhere to put these sodding roses

Afternoon!
Sounds like you are acquiring some lovely things , and getting great advice from shove
My Hypericum is 'Hidcote' , its a tallish shrub, - it flowers on and off for a long time , which we are now attempting to keep 4-5' high ( mmm :) ) but its not invasive, just enthusiastic! I used to have rose of sharon -, a low growing variety that is very invasive , took me a few years to get rid of that.

I have Rose of Sharon . It is ineradicable! And it flowers for less than a week a year. Rubbish thing. I am on a proper war against it this year. I will win. Even if I have to torch it with fire.

Hawthorn is not really worth keeping IMO - it's not terribly ornamental and if you wanted it in a hedgerow, you can buy plants for cheap. Your roses will be much more attractive!!

Hawthorn is a right old bastard, we had to get out a small tree our predecessors here let grow in the middle of a bed, and we both looked like we'd been mauled by tigers.

The Hawthorn is a waste of time really. It's just a twiggy bush in the winter blocking the little day light coming into the house. I'd rather look at a bare rose and at least have a bit more light indoors! I seem to remember it being rather boring in the summer, too. I don't think I need a hedgerow between my house and my own garden - I'm not worried if the squirrels can see in!

I've potted up some of the roses today just so they don't die. I only know what three of the seven are - is there any way to work out what kind of rose the others are (climber/shrub etc rather than colour) while they are bare? I don't want to accidentally plant a shrub rose next to a wall thinking it's a climber