What was the garden like before all the work? The garden we took over from the previous owner was, in estate agent parlance, “well stocked”. There was a profusion of conifer: thuja, Castelwellan, dark brooding firs, and creeping junipers. There was a profusion of evergreens- oleanders, grisellas, laurels, a variagated ficus japonica, privet, pittosporums and eleagnus. Flowers seemed to end with June. There were Fosrythia, flowering currents, Chaenomeles, berberis darwinii, and a nice 3m tall ceanothus which went well with the neighbouring variagated eleagnus. The crowning glory was two laburnums - roughly half way down and in opposite borders. In season there was blossom on 8 semi-dwarf apple trees (M25) . A Genista Lydia was leggy, and there was a calistemon, which was totally underwhelming.
What passed for summer colour was in front of the house. A lonely red peony, a thing of beauty, was a joy for a fortnight. Beneath a laurel hedge there was a row of five washed out pink hydrangeas (probably macrophylla - but certainly the common or garden variety) that failed to impress. There was a lot of irregularly shaped lawn on uneven surfaces which was hard to mow. End of the story.
A twin tragedy on the season of our arrival in May 1989 set in train a series of events that results in the garden we now have. Old Laburnums are prone to split at the bole - and in two fell swoops we lost both laburnums to this process in the same season. I was unsure of the best way to address this at the time and I left what I thought was well-enough alone - hoping for regrowth on some other botanical miracle.
A botanical miracle did happen. Nature did what nature does. A fungus decided to reclaim the biomass of the laburnum back for its own. Armillaria alarm - honey fungus. As an innocent gardener I was unaware of the devastation it was about to wreak. I was upset about the variagated ficus japonica and an acer palmatum atropurp. that were close to the laburnum on the eastern flank of the garden. However it also rapidly spread through 10 or so unattributable mid-green conifer hedging about 2.5 m in height along the rest of that border. I shed no tears - it was a call to action. I did a lot of reading.
I did a lot of clearing and became familiar with the chain saw. I learned all about Amarillatox - which often made me feel a bit queezy - but required frequent application. I learned about resistant plants - and I ended up with a border where a proto-coniferous forest used to be.
As a family, we had enjoyed holidays in cottages surrounding Sleightholme Dale Lodge. The Lodge’s gardens were an inspiration - romantic perennial borders mixed with old roses were imprinted on my mind and now I had an opportunity to try for myself. Thus the long border commenced - lupins, delphiniums and acquilegia - ample sowings of cosmos and nigella and Rosa Glauca, R. William Loeb, R. Souvenir de Dr Jarmain and Gertrude Jeykell. A philadelphus (suitable distance away from the source of fungus) and R. Felicité et Perpetué. Work life didn’t allow for much more. The gardening chores like mowing pruning, dabbing Morteg on in season etc. was what could be managed. I also planted a spindly eucalyptus that I found in the bargain bin of garden centre.
Slowly but surely, over time, self-sown sycamores on my neighbour’s side of grew and grew. Over the next twenty years the 8 apple trees at the bottom of the garden became less and less productive.... Other things happened - but that is for another post.