In the front garden the daffs have had their fading heads chopped off and it’s all about tulips and forget-me-nots now. Not exactly cutting edge, but soft and romantic and traditional.
With the front garden taking care of itself, it’s been all hands on deck in the back garden. This area has been very scrappy for a very long time but the blurry edges are being sharpened and it is all starting to come together.
There are sandstone and brick steps outside the back door instead of a 40cm drop into patchy grass. The ‘lawn’ has been cut into a precise (almost) semi-circle. The overgrown hard standing has been broken up and the dead earth is waiting to be turned into fertile soil.
A woodland area has been planted in front of next door’s leyland cypress hedge. The wild cherry put itself there and the strawberry tree, snowball tree and pittosporum (every single leaf brown and crisp from the winter, but greening up slowly) were existing, and between these holly, silver birch, hawthorn, mahonia, foxgloves, euphorbia, geraniums, Michaelmas daisies, alpine strawberries, hellebores and daffodils.
The straight line of the semi-circular lawn stretches from the back door steps to this woodland area and butts up to the brick patio. This patio has spent many years overgrown with all manner of grass and weeds and is as uneven as can be. It is a perfect companion to the lawn of weeds: both as scruffy as each other. So some crisp, new formality is to be introduced between them in the form of a clipped box hedge.
About February last year Homebase were selling packs of box, essentially rooted cuttings, 10 for £9.99. Potting them up I managed to get an extra plant out of them so I have been growing on 11 plants which are now the size and shape of my hand with the fingers outstretched. They are all happily in the ground in a straight line.
They are about 40cm apart and at the moment have been interplanted with Little Gem lettuce. It may be that the spacing is just a little too much, but cuttings have been taken and are safely tucked up in a propagator to infill in 18 months from now.
If these cuttings aren’t needed, then I can always have a go at recreating the topiary peacocks (except in box, not yew) at Great Dixter.
Tags: alpine strawberries, and between these holly, but greening up slowly) were existing, clipped box hedge, daffodils, euphorbia, forget-me-nots, foxgloves, geraniums, hawthorn, hellebores, leyland cypress, Little Gem lettuce, mahonia, Michaelmas daisies, silver birch, snowball tree and pittosporum (every single leaf brown and crisp from the winter, strawberry tree, topiary peacocks, tulips
