Extra space I didn't know I had

This area was overgrown when I bought the house and in the 5 years since it had become an impenetrable jungle. Few days ago I attacked it and got it to this. Previous owners used it as a dumping ground. Still aways to go but I'm wondering what I might do with it when its actually cleared . Ideas always welcome



Looking back towards the front garden

 

It looks like lovely, dappled shade. Woodland perennials? Anemones, ferns, hostas, solomon's seal, pulmonarias...do you know roughly what the soil PH is? There are sooo many beautiful plants that would thrive in a bit of shade.....

 

How exciting to have a new bit of space to play with! noisette47's suggestions sound good, bulbs such as snowdrops and cyclamen coum should also do well.

 

A seat across the back of that shed with loads of Honeysuckle around it, providing somewhere secluded and fragrant to sit of an evening/early morning?

 

This was taken this evening.

This is what I removed beforehand. Not a lot of difference with the before and after shots and still loads more to shift.

I like the idea of a secret garden, even though its a small spce. Also like the idea of a ' living ' seat, ie a bench style seat with a sedum or moss topping. I've got a young Honeysuckle in a pot, so could use that around the sest and growing up the shed or maybe a Jasmine might be nice. As I discussed (briefly ) with ARMANDII a pond would be great but might not be possible due to the clay pipes from the septic system. Not sure how deep they are so will need to dig down to find them. Maybe a small water feature might be possible. Got lots of ideas, probably too many ..... always been blessed with an abundance of imagination

 

Wasn't expecting to find a load of what appears to be hard core infill underneath the surface layer of debris and soil/leaves. Not sure how much is there or how deep it is - test pit is almost 2ft deep and no end in sight. Also clay pipes to soakaway are underneath all that . On top of the hard core I found what looks like the remains of grass, so possibly turf was put down to hide it. Need to dig at the other end of the space to see how far the hard core extends.


Not sure why its there or how long its been there . Removing it all poses a problem. Digging it all out by hand isn't going to be a lot of fun and I still have to dispose of it. Skip hire is too expensive.

 

I don't know the size and/or use of the rest of your garden but I would be tempted to use this as a work area of sorts, for example you could have a 5 or 6 bay composting area down one side of the pathway.

Sometimes its better to work with what you have rather than re-working it, so to speak.

Steve...

 

I'm more concerned about the soak away pipes. Can't imagine why hard core would be dumped on top of them. Busy today and most of tomorrow, but hoping to dig a few more test holes at weekend to determine how much there is.

In my minds eye I have an image of this space transformed into a secret garden. It might turn out to be not the image I had in mind but there are always possibilities

 

I did think about this but thought that unless there is a culvert covering the pipes the weight of the hard core would crack the pipes??

 

The guy who came to take a look confirmed my suspicions that its not a proper system. An ' illegal hole in the ground ' were his exact words so I think its reasonable to assume it wasn't professionally installed . I will be having a new ' proper ' system put in. I suspect there are quite lot of ' illegal holes in the ground ' on Anglesey.

 

I shan't be moving to Llanfairpwllgwyngll-gogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysilio-gogogoch if there are illegal holes everywhere then @luciusmaximus I shall have to withdraw my offer...