Hello there. This is
my first time ever posting to a blog, so please bear with me if I should make
some very elementary mistakes.
I live in a tiny 170 year old Victorian terraced cottage in the
centre of a small market town in Lincolnshire, together with my husband Pete
and a bossy 15 year old tabby, name of Katie Jane. I might be a townie now, but I was brought up
in the countryside and that is where my heart belongs. Unfortunately, it’s not practical for us to
move back there and we couldn’t afford it now anyway, so I’ve done the next
best thing and tried to create my own little corner of the English countryside,
here in my own back garden. Well, I say “garden”,
but actually it’s more of a courtyard, measuring around 14’ x 21’, with planted
borders and - in former days - a proliferation of tubs and pots crammed in wherever I could find
room for them.
I have to admit that in years past I did go rather over the
top for such a small plot and my family would often look out of the window at
the jungle beyond, sigh, and mutter something along the lines of my trying to
squeeze a quart into a pint pot. And I
have to say, there were times when I had to agree with them – I think back now
to trying to edge out of the back door after a heavy shower of rain when the
forsythia and bay tree branches had met and mingled to form a soggy wet
barrier, and the occasions where I practically needed a machete to get
to the wheelie bin at the bottom of the garden.
However, I’ve had no choice but to become a lot more
sensible in recent years because I can no longer manage
all the trimming, watering and care that such a tightly crammed garden entails,
and I’ve gradually had many of the tubs that were in the centre of the
courtyard taken away. They were
falling apart, anyway – half oak barrels will only last so long, even if you do
keep treating them regularly with plant-friendly wood preservative. Now they’ve gone and, what do you know,
surprise, surprise, I actually like the new, open vista. I can’t think why I put it off for so long. Especially now there’s room for a bench out
there, so I can sit and admire my handiwork whenever the weather permits (ha ha
– that seems a very long way off at the moment).
Well, there might only be half the plants there used to be,
but this is a garden that still very much comes into its own – as it always has
done - during the winter months and is as attractive from December to March as at
other times of the year. Even more so in
some respects, because it also comes alive with a myriad of feathered visitors,
invisible at other times of the year
when the trees and shrubs are in full leaf.
Over the course of my next few blog entries (always
supposing I manage to post this first one okay!), I’d like to share with you
some of the secrets of a garden which looks good all year round and will always
provide you with something interesting to watch from your living room window,
birdlife included, whenever you get tired of that burbling rectangular box in the corner (and, no, I'm not referring to the fish tank!)
Look forward to speaking with you again soon.
Who didn't prune her buddleia this year?
Still, it looks pretty in the snow.
