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Just over 30 years ago I started making the garden at Veddw with not much else than a spade and a desperate need to have a garden. There was no internet, we knew no-one, and had very little money. But we had a rather depressing house and two acres of field. The internet, I think, would have helped, because I knew so little and I was lonely and in need of friendly help.

So coming across Bridget, starting a similarly mad adventure, I wanted to offer what help I can. And today there is the internet. So I suggested she share her design problems, thoughts, hopes and needs with you all in the hope that would be useful to Bridget and also to anyone else wondering how to design their own garden with sod all help or money.

This is not about plants except where they assist the process. (I came to regard them as weapons, helping me to fill space and subdue weeds). But Bridget can tell you what she needs better than me. Here is Chapter One. All useful thoughts welcome. What would you do?

Portrait Anne Wareham copyright Charles Hawes

 

 

 

 

 

Anne Wareham, editor.

Bramleys – Chapter 1 by Bridget Hannigan

 

Eighteen months ago I moved to the village of Oswaldkirk, on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors.  Driven by a need to be sensible and downsize but also (less sensible) a desire for somewhere with a decent sized plot that I could really get my teeth into.  I’d loved, but outgrown, my previous walled courtyard garden and I wanted to see what I could create, given the opportunity.

The Mad Enterprise of Starting a New Garden by Bridget Hannigan on thinkingardens photo 1.

The garden I left behind.

There is a small border along the front of the cottage and a lawn to the east side but the bulk of the garden (about half an acre) is a south-facing hillside to the rear, above the property.  The views from the top are beautiful. They over-ruled common sense and made me buy the place.  If the new garden turns out to be a little bit crap we can all just admire the scenery instead, can’t we?

View over Bramleys copyright Bridget Hannigan for thinkingardens

Just sitting and looking – that might work?

 

It’s pretty much a blank canvas.  All I’ve inherited are nine sorry-looking fruit trees on the left side and a mighty old walnut tree on the right-hand boundary. “Don’t worry” said the Estate Agent, “if it ever comes down it will land on your neighbour’s house, not yours”.  A definite selling point.

Walnut Tree copyright Bridget Hannigan on thinkingardens

The magnificent walnut tree

Visiting ‘horti’ friends remark “Oh! It’s steep!” with distinct ‘rather you than me’ undertones.  Still, I’ve cleared the encroaching brambles, ground elder and ivy and am now Gladiator Ready!

So, I have lots of ideas.  Some of them are scribbled down on paper and a few have actually made it to the ground, but most are still floating around in my head, not quite fully formed.  I’d like to acknowledge the history of the place and the people, but create something new for me.  Easier said than done?

I want this garden to be somewhere to linger, to be amongst the plants, to admire the view and feel at peace.  Despite being a professional gardener, this won’t be about immaculate horticulture: that can leave me totally cold if a garden has no ‘feeling’.  There is no big budget (in truth there is no budget at all). Things will happen as time and finances allow, with a little help from friends when I need bigger muscles.

Last winter I separated the area of fruit trees with a curving copper beech hedge.  I want to keep this side of the garden looser and more natural and have added species roses, lilacs, viburnums and spring bulbs.  A new doorway created in the cottage has left me with a big pile of stone and I’d like to use it to build a low, curving wall enclosing a grassy seating area: I like the feeling of being surrounded and immersed within the planting rather than perched above it and emotionally detached.

I dream of a flowery meadow, alive with butterflies and bees.  I stopped cutting the grass over summer and am interested to see what evolves naturally – so far just lots more grass but it’s early days.  The verges around here are full of Campion and Cranesbill so I’m hopeful.  Or perhaps naive.  Has anyone else experience of meadow-making? (yes, – editor)

Plans for the right hand side are harder to define.  I’d like this area to be more obviously ‘gardened’ with a zig-zag path through the planting, up to seating at the top to soak up that view (and recover from the climb!).  I have a rough picture in my head but I know this part will take much longer to feel right.  I don’t want it to be predictable and formulaic but how do I avoid falling into that trap?  I don’t have a specific list of plants as yet; the initial criteria being just that I like it and it will grow happily here.

Whether the Walnut will pose a problem I don’t know; advice seems to vary.  I’m planting shrubs claimed to be ‘juglone tolerant’ near to it, to establish a wind-break on the boundary to protect from the vicious easterlies that can whip through the site.  It’s tough, the soil is almost non-existent here.  The village was home to two limestone quarries and it’s easy to see why.

We all know the advice: live with your new garden for a year, get to know it, then draw plans, do all the hard landscaping and begin your planting. (Whoever ever did that? – editor) Naturally, being a professional, I have ignored this completely (yes I can hear you all tutting at me). The need to get hands in the soil and start creating was too strong.  Well, that and the queue of fifty-odd pots of perennials brought from my old garden, all withering away in the sun and begging for salvation.  Being able to look out from the landing window last summer onto a large border full of flowers was a joy.  I’m paying the price for it now though; the builders are back doing some more work on the cottage and stamping all over it in the process. Two steps forward…

Bridget Hannigan on thinkingardens

Before trampling…

I sometimes wonder if I am a little bit mad doing this?  It’s hard work and takes time and money that I am always short of.  A nice man in the village will keep the grass short, as it is, for £12 a month.  Life could be easy.  But oh what a missed opportunity, what a waste of a beautiful place.  Some of the nicest times here so far have been sitting on the wall with a coffee in the morning sunshine, looking up at ‘my space’ and making plans, growing ideas and beginning something.  Exciting times.  Feel free to advise and to criticise, to contribute and be part of it.  Here goes…

Bridget Hannigan 

 

Portrait Bridget Hannigan on thinkingardens

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