Quick update

This is the view from our bedroom window, towards the woodlands. We get a good view of the pond, and the dining area, and usually see what the children are up to.

I quite often spend time looking out over the garden, making plans of what I'd like to do next. Its a good exercise in disipline, as I always make far too many plans, and have to reduce all the ideas in line with the space I have available.

The pond has progressed a little, I've started putting hessian bags filled with soil around the outside to disguise the edges. I'll be using plants from the bog gardens, divided and plant them into the sacks, hopefully they will fill out and hide them by the spring. The weather is still too wet to do an awful lot outside, but every available minute is spent out there.

The herbaceous gardens are starting to go over at last, they seem to have kept hold of their leaves longer than usual, perhaps as they were delayed at the beginning of the season. Once things start to die down naturally, I'll think about clearing up, although I don't usually start until after Christmas. I find the dead and decaying leaves act as a good mulch and its much easier to clear the garden in Jan & Feb.

Pond In Progress

I managed to line the ponds with extensive carpet donations, this hopefully protects the liner and stops the moles digging through and ruining the pond, perhaps the weight of the water will stop too much damage...they just seem to dig under the swimming pool. With the help of one of the children I managed to get the liner laid out in an afternoon, it looks easy, but I assure you its not..I waited for rain, I tried to rig up the pump from the stream to pump water in, but the pond is too high above the river. Eventually I filled it up with water from the hose, then it rained for 4 days........typical. I planned to hide the divide from the 2nd pond with rocks and hessian sacks filled with soil. I didn't appreciate how hard it is to manouvre heavy rocks without damaging the liner, I managed with the aid of some carpet and felt I've made a good job, but its taken me 4 days to stand up straight again !! I've got to do it again to hide the divide between the 2nd & 3rd ponds(when/if I ever finished digging it out.) I've also got to hide the edges of the pond, build a path down one side, finish the beach area, plant up the whole area, perhaps I might finish by next summer!



Whilst digging out the pond, tidying up etc etc we've also started on the other raised grass circle area. There are no natural flat area's in the woodland gardens, so after the success of the 1st circle, I decided that it would be good to mirror the flat area nearer the house and make it available to swimmers whilst drying off. It will also be a good vantage place to study the ponds. This circle will be higher than the other, so again I have a huge amount of soil moving to do, some of the surplus from the 3rd pond will be dumped here, along with spoil already dumped here from the large pond. Perhaps if I get to dig the overgrown borders over, all that can go here too.

Finished digging wildlife pond at last!

The roses on the arbour have been flowering for weeks now, even some of the clematis have recovered from being stuck in pots at the garden centres and put on an impresive display, next year should be stunning. The wildlife pond at last has been dug out and I've managed to get some old carpet to line the bottom, m'spouse is getting a bit fed up of me stopping at every skip to see if they've got any old carpet in them, I've had several donations from friends, and might go to the local carpet shop to raid their bins as people have to pay to have it taken away!
The borders looked wonderful with all the asters that came into flower this month. A lot of the cuttings I took last year (from Picton Nurseries) have been planted in the borders, some flowered as well, although I should have cut them off to preserve their strength, but they looked so pretty. I'm already looking forward to next year.



This area has come together well, I've just mulched the area with last years wood shreddings left to rot down in the woods with lots of leaf mold. The autumn leaf colour was stunning with the Hamamelis x intermedia 'Diana' having brilliant red leaves, the yellow flowering ones seem to have yellow autumn coloured leaves. The Kniphofia is 'Rooperi' is autumn flowering and has huge flower heads, this one I got from Carol Klein's nursery and it has quadrupled in size in 2 years. The cyclamen have grown, some clumps are over 1' wide this year and lots of baby seedlings are showing their leaves. I should one day have enough to fill the woodland garden too.

"The Times Back Garden of the Year 2006"

Back Garden of the Year
Stephen Anderton begins his countdown of the winning plots: Week one, the runners up


"Some journalists are sent to war zones; I get to look round gardens, which is fine by me. My idea of heaven, in fact. And in June I was looking round your gardens, judging the shortlisted entries in this year’s best back garden competition; what wonderful places there were to see – sophisticated, rustic, large, small, all made with serious care"

Runner up: Best New Garden

What a recipe for success is sandy soil and a high water table. You can see the proof at David and Elaine Rolfe’s garden near Abergavenny, which was started four years ago and looks as if it has been there 20.

The Rolfes work from home in web design and building computers, and have eight children between the ages of 7 and 19. They are also foster parents; sometimes there are as many as 11 children in the house. ‘‘We wanted a house for eight,” says David. “This was for rent – it’s an old mill – so here we are. But there were no plans for a garden.”

But Elaine started to devour gardening magazines and to visit local gardens. She wanted something other than the rhododendrons favoured by the neighbours. “I imagined something softer and richer, like Abbey Dore in Herefordshire, with winding paths and flowers.” Within months, she was planting a half-acre garden, then a sheep field containing one lilac and two roses. David built the structures – gazebos, arches, seats and a chinchilla cage.

“There are hardly any full-price plants,” says Elaine. “I go for the bargains. Sometimes I buy plants without labels. I feel sorry for them, like orphans. I also got loads of plants from my mother’s garden.”

The result is a garden rich in flowers and at its peak in July when the herbaceous plants are in full fling. It is slightly sunk under the drive and tall walls and outbuildings, except on one side where it borders a field and a stream. It feels like a walled garden, full of grass paths and enclosures topped with swags of climbers.

Down one side is a generous border, passing from deep red through yellow to blue. Blue Solanum ‘Glasnevin’ winds into cardoons underplanted with hostas. Tall alliums shine alongside purple lupins. Bordering the field is a stream bed, where marginal plants thrive – astilbes, candelabra primulas, Libertia ixioides and monkey flowers.

The garden also has plenty of height. There are birches, Prunus serrula, contorted willows and bamboos. It’s the sheer energy of the place that earned it its votes. As in any new garden, time will call for some editing, but what a business-like start. The garden is even open for the National Gardens Scheme, and the children, rewarded with a choice of home-made cakes, help man the gate.

An Update on earlier projects.

I don't think I've posted any pictures of the dining area now its sort of finished. I've built a retaining wall about 1' high out of left over stone to hold back the soil and also to define the area. We serve cream tea's at weekends if the weather is nice, and it has proved very popular. The steps are still not finished as the stump at the top has proved very difficult to remove, we're going to try and burn it out next.

I've widened the beds up the steps to form a flowing bed down the side of the hill, next to the dining area. I am going to put a screen up so the woodland garden can not be seen, again to get people to explore it, once they are on the trail they stay for ages, its just getting them to make the walk. I've not decided on a theme for this area yet, probably Mediterranean as its so hot especially with the 15' stone wall of the leat behind it. At the end of the arbour we have made another circular arbour, this is made from the remains of the trampoline, which sadly passed away after 2 joyous years of bouncing. The children did think we were going to re-install it at the new 6' height, and were so disappointed when we informed them 'no-way'. Hopefully given a couple of years it will be unrecognisable as a trampoline.

Still digging out the pond, all the stones I find in this area are going to make a pebble beach so that wildlife can get out easily. I'm also finding some huge rocks that take 2 of us to remove, but they will make nice features in their own right. We had a load of lovely stone given to us (cast offs from a developer) hopefully enough to piece together a path on the right of the pond, leading to another summer house, so we can watch the wildlife on the pond. Also I've decided to dig out a 3rd pond slightly higher up and perhaps even a small waterfall leading into the pond. We are probably going to re-circulate the water although running water from the brook through it and back into it would be a prefered method, but possibly illegal.

Busy digging and shifting.

I've made a start on digging out the ponds, the lower edge I'm building up slightly to reduce the digging, I've also laid a waterproof membrane punctured in places under this area to create a bog garden. Run off from the pond will probably help keep this area wet too. I've moved some of the top soil to the area behind the shed as this needed building up, some of the turf has been relaid there in an effort to level out the lawn area.

The second pond will have fish in, so I've been digging this a bit deeper than the big pond which will be a wildlife pond. I've hopefully enough plants to cover the surrounds of the pond, and will spend the next few months dividing plants from the existing bog garden. (When I've finished digging it out of course!)

We have another open day next week, so hopefully people will notice the progress and perhaps offer to help dig the pond out?

The arbour is coming along nicely now, we have covered it with pig netting, which I find very effective and reasonably cheap. I've planted numerous clematis all bargains under £3, and lots of roses, again mainly bargains that I have saved over the last year. The expanding trellis we're using to screen the wood store, has traveled around with us for 5 years now, so I'm sure it will be glad at last to find a permanent home. The bench is home made (of course), although m'spouse was very disappointed with it initially until I pointed out it would be brilliant in the arbour, and it would give a very nice view up the garden.

New Projects !

As usual I decided on a new project. We had a couple of cool days so I decided to hire the turf cutter again (the hire shop did say they were going to visit as they didn't believe we could possibly have any grass left in the garden!) The lower area was crying out for development, and whilst I had promised the children I would leave them some grass to play on, I decided that I'd like a pond. Then decided 2 linked ponds would be nicer and a better use of the space. So this is the result of 2 days madness.
At the same time I decided that we needed a suitable entrance to the garden as when visitors get to the grass, they think they can see all their is to be seen and often don't bother going up and looking round and discovering all the other work and plants up towards the woods. I felt if we screened the area with a long arbour, leading the view away around the corner it would encourage them to investigate further. Later that evening after all the destruction we had a visit from a garden group who were a little shocked, luckily the colourful herbaceous gardens quickly calmed them.

The area in the bottom corner of the garden that I rearranged earlier in the year looks like it has been here for ages now, everything has blended in well, I'm still not sure whether I should leave the path through from the other border, the idea people would walk around the sunken area to get here doesn't work as people just take the short cut through the border....I'm still thinking about it. The woodland borders are now maturing, another 5 years or so and they will be stunning, its hard to believe these were planted only 6 months ago.

Green and Lush

The bog garden as usual is very green and lush, occasionally we get a chance to sit down in this area, not very often I'd admit. From down in the forgotten bottom corner you can still just see the house, its a quiet corner without many colours apart from green of course.

The steps are maturing nicely now, I seem to have lost quite a number of plants over the winter, one of my callistemons has died, the one right next to it survived ok though. The roses this year seem to be prolific, I've hundreds of flowers on my 'Dublin Bay' and 'Gertrude Jeykll', and the smell from them all is wonderful, like rose petal perfume I used to make as a child...!

Recovering from the NGS Opening

Peace at last...The garden was very glad of all the rain we've had recently, in its effort to recover from the trampling of over 300 people. The Urn is the one I got myself for my Birthday, I had to move the previous statue by Henry Moore to the new area in the front garden, this urn seems in keeping size wise. The cherry trees have flowered their socks off this year, the best yet. This Ceanothus 'Trewithen Blue' (I think), has grown enormously, its been in less than 3 years and is absolutely huge, I think I will have to try and prune it back after flowering - hope it doesn't die.



The cherry tree, the Ceanothus with euphorbia 'fireglow' in the fore ground, and a Cornus Kousa of some variety.




The grass in the back circle looks like it has been there for ever now, all the woodland beds are growing nicely, hopefully the Rhododendrons will be flowering soon. After a huge amount of effort we managed, at last, to move most of the giant rocks uncovered by the digger, the last huge one we had to use a drill in the end and luckily the rock came apart quite easily in layers. Some of the layers had roots over the whole surface, all quite interesting in fine detail. I have laid more of the weed matting out, and am saving up for some more cheap gravel.

Ist Open day of the Year

Far from the madding crowds ? Not likely, in the thick of it I'd say. Had absolutely lovely weather, despite the forcast all week suggesting heavy showers on Sunday. Auntie Sue arranged the teas, in aid of raising money for her boys to cycle from Lands End to John O'Groats, in order to raise money for Ty Hafen, a Welsh Childrens Hospice. They are part of a party of 12, hers are 13, and 16. Good luck to them all...
Child no 3 volunteered to man the gates with some help (?) from the younger members of the household. This is the car park at about 11am (We'd just opened). As we opened at 11am it was a nice steady pace until about 1.30/2pm when we suddenly seemed to have another 200 arrive. Perhaps most gardens open at 2pm and people get used to going then. In total we had about 320 people visit ( + about 15 older persons sneaked in apparantly), but raised over £700 which was brilliant.
As you can see the gravel area outside the makeshift tearooms was rather busy at times !!




The garden suddenly came together on the Saturday, I gave one final mow and edged all the grass, which takes hours and kills my useless arms at the best of times, but to have to do the front and back was agony...but it had to be done. The weeks of weeding seems to have paid off too, I only finshed some bits the day before and I think there were still quite a few in the bottom corner, but you do get to the stage where you don't actually care anymore. The tulips were stunning especially in the red beds by the steps.




I thought I'd best add some pictures of the secret shed for those of you who's spouses/partners/children do not like gardening. This amusement kept many a child/parent busy whilst the other was free to look around the garden in as long a time as possible. There were a few tears (mainly from the adults) when it was time to go...and t'spouse has promised some young children that he'll try and get the dalek finished by the next open day....