Unusual shaped garden project

Hi everyone,

I'm new here and very much looking forward to starting on my back garden after 18 months fixing up the inside of the house. Fortunately this phase is nearly complete. But I must start to think about the garden and wondered whether anyone could help with ideas of plants and designs.

The house is a victorian semi which has a long tapering garden:



The brick warehouse is just used for storage these days but should make for a nice feature. Where the building ends at the top of the garden there is an hidden area that will make a great shed and storage area for the garden tools and my motorcycles. I'll post more on this once I get started!

Looking back at the house there is a nice little patio and now a french door (instead of the window you can see) leading onto the patio.



Don't worry about the old chimney bricks - these have gone now but I do have a good stack of nice old bricks that I can use for building any walls etc.

It's something of a blank canvas right now which is quite exciting - I've never had a garden before and I'm keen to get this right.

The big question is what can I do with a shape like this? Should I try to use curves or angles around the garden? I have a few ideas...

I will require a hard path that leads from the patio area up to the imaginary shed top of the garden for the motorcycles. I was thinking about a sweeping path.....

Maybe an arbor at the top end with 3 or 4 sets of uprights and crossbars (not sure if these have a particular name!) with climbers. Needs a fast growing type and maybe some thing that will grow from a pot. Are there any grapes that would grow in the UK?

The long wall is a nice feature but needs some climbers to hide the damaged surface in places. This really gets the sun in the afternoon. Starting from scratch something that grows quickly would be a good start - I quite fancy some ivy (a red one) and clematis. Are there any legal issues to consider when planting climbers against this wall?

A small herb garden near the end of the house and possibly a small water feature.

The patio needs some pots and a small climber to cover up some modifications to the brick work. This area gets the sun in the morning.

So that's the brief! Hope to make a start on the infrastructure over the Easter weekend.

Any ideas or suggestions are most welcome. I must admit that I don't have the first clue about the plants but you have to start somewhere.

Thanks in advance!

M

 

Garden Mole welcome to the forum.

Looks like you have been busy and also it's nice to know you already have set requirements for your garden.

Your garden appears to be the same funny shape as our back garden meeting up to a point at the far edge. If you plan right you could make your garden appear incredibly wider than it is and using curves as you have already suggested will work out great for this.

Not sure what style your after but I get the impression that you are after one that fits well with your house style?

A herb garden be it in pots, hanging baskets or just in the soil are ideally placed near to the house as the scent from them is really enchanting on a warm summer evening and most are 'safe' plants for children to 'feel'.

If you're after 'red' ivy you should look for Boston Ivy or Virginia Creeper both sadly loose their leaves in winter but the stunning redness of the leaves in autumn more than makes up for this.

Not sure what laws there is regarding planting climbers up on neighbours walls as I haven't ever had a problem like this, but I'm sure someone will be able to help you out.

One very fast Clematis is the Montana and you need a big space for this as it grows quite fast but you are rewarded by masses of flowers in May and few plants could match this stunning display!
Hel.xxx.

 

Thanks Hel. I appreciate your ideas. The Boston Ivy looks lovely - I'd been warned about the leaves and don't mind this. The Montana also looks great but I need to get a better idea about the scale.

I'm yet to get into gear on the garden project so far and looking at the UK weather forecast from out of the UK I'm not in any rush!

More postings coming soon!

M

 

Hi Garden Mole,

Have you spoken to the owners of the warehouse? I think it's always best to talk to neighbours before planning on any permanent planting up their walls - I'm sure technically they could ask you to remove it for maintenance access (eg if they wanted to re-point the wall) but you might find they are relaxed and don't mind. Certainly if you want to attach trellis/pergola pieces to the wall I would get permission first. Hope they don't mind cos it could be fantastic - loads of choice things enjoy a sunny wall. One nice self clinging climber is campsis radicans (Trumpet vine)- has fantastic big exotic-looking flowers in late summer. "Madame Galen" is a good variety to get - a glowing apricot/orange colour.

If you like the idea of something edible,you could even grow your own peaches - garden centres have fan-trained plants in now for growing against sunny walls......what a lovely thought on this cold windy day!
Tigerlily

 

If planting climbers etc. up the walls of the warehouse is going to be a problem you can always get around this by making a trellis frame a few inches from the wall, that way it will not be attached to their wall and 'they' can't complain. Hel.xxx.

 

Thanks for that Tiger Lily and Hel. I will have to be careful - there has been no sign of life in the last 18 months. I probably won't go straight onto the wall - too much hassle as you say should any maintenance be needed. Hmmmm - peaches. I hadn't thought of that. Can you really grow them in the UK?

If the weather is good then the work will start soon.Was planning on getting the path started but this is a big project that will take some time. Might be more fun to get some plants in and would start to transform the look! Montana and Boston Ivy are definitely going in to cover the rougher areas of the big wall.

Thanks again for your generous advice.

M

 

Yup, I had a dwarf peach tree in a pot. In the years when I remembered to water it properly it produced masses of small (size of apricots) but UNBELIEVABLY DELICIOUS peaches! totally different to shop-bought ones.

The only real faff with them is avoiding a fungal nasty called "peach leaf curl" - which disfigures the leaves (although doesn't affect the fruit). The plant catches this in the winter, when spores come down in rainwater, so all you need to do to prevent it is erect a temporary winter rain cover - eg sheet of polythene on a fan-trained one would do. Not a great Winter-garden feature but worth it if you like proper peaches. (Alternatively it can be prevented by spraying in Spring)