(1st blog post in a series of 4)
I love my home – and I love my garden. However, with my husband and me both working and three young children to look after, the latter gets overlooked.
Inside the home, our family life revolves around the dining room table. Everything happens there; family meals, socialising, homework, painting, planning, working, playing… However, when we glance out of the window to the garden, our hearts sink! The view from the table to the garden is through the sun room and out to the pond.
As I write this now, the three flowerbeds around the pond are overgrown with tangled weeds, the lavender is past its best, the (rather unattractive) pond filter is visible and the surrounding paths are overgrown. The view is generally disheartening; it’s a job not done…
I could certainly take all the weeds away and cut back the bushes in the background… but what next?
The dream
Our dream is to look out at the pond area, and to feel uplifted, heartened, moved by attractive year-round colour. My husband also wants a small herb garden within reach of the kitchen to enhance our cooking.
I want to bring the pond area back under control. I want to participate in all stages of the pond and herb area’s transformation process from the planning, nursery shopping and planting through to learning how to maintain these areas once the project is complete. I turned to Cathy at Wild to Wonderful for her help, professional advice and support.
Cathy Cornish’s advice
Cathy’s garden design service is about adding value to the garden space, so it can reach its full potential, based on the needs and the budget of the people living there. When Cathy arrived at my home, she listened very carefully to my needs and aspirations for the pond and herb areas. Shortly after our discussion, it became clear exactly how Cathy added value.
With my budgetary and low maintenance requirements for a simple high impact planting scheme in Cathy’s mind, we walked around the pond area and the rest of the garden. We looked at the heathers, the lavender and the sedum plants already in situ around the pond, and Cathy talked about their condition and whether they could be renovated or cut back. We then walked around the garden, surveying the plants I already had. With Cathy’s keen eye, experience and knowledge of what would and would not work, we found a range of plants that could be split and re-planted around the pond area. The plants from the new herb garden could also be re-homed around the pond, freeing up the flowerbed for the herbs.
The action plan
Over a pot of tea at the garden table, Cathy conjured up a planting scheme using existing resources from around my own garden. A short while later, we had worked out a solution:
Pond flowerbeds
– Remove weeds
– Remove the large blue lavender (as this was past renovation)
– Renovate the white lavender
– Remove sedums from large garden pot and plant
– Split & plant sedums from around the garden
– Remove and replace crocosmia, alchemilla, irises from around the garden
– Purchase a small range of plants and bulbs to complete
Herb garden
– Remove weeds
– Purchase range of herbs suitable for space & location
With Cathy’s guidance, we had come up with a natural, casual and colourful planting scheme. The range of colours – pink, blue, orange, yellow and white – from the mix of sedums, irises, crocosmia and alchemilla would give year-round interest. The solution was low-maintenance and, with the addition of a few plants and bulbs from The Herb Farm and/or Root One to plug the gaps, we had made good use of a small space which is, in fact, the focal point for our garden.
Click the link below to watch Cathy outline her planting scheme for my garden pond area:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es5jWS-QpuI
Next steps
1. Lindsay to weed flowerbeds and remove the failing blue lavender plant
Cathy and Lindsay to work together to remove, renovate, replace plants from around the garden to the pond location
Cathy and Lindsay to develop plant shopping list
2. Cathy and Lindsay to go plant/herb shopping together
Cathy and Lindsay to plant new herbs/plants around pond and in herb garden locations
Cathy to show Lindsay how to maintain the pond and herb gardens going forward
3. Cathy to revisit Lindsay in spring 2014 to review progress and advise accordingly
I can already see that working with Cathy on my garden project is going to be both educational and enjoyable but, with her extensive knowledge and experience, the nursery shopping trip is also going to be a true eye-opener. Her advice will be invaluable when selecting the best plants for the pond and herb areas, with her knowledge of the soil, the aspect and maintenance required, and the speed of their growth. She has already saved me some money by showing me how I can split and reposition existing plants from my own garden.
Want to know how we get on?
This blog post is the first in a series of four, recording the progress of my garden planting scheme project from start to finish. Follow this blog series to find out how Cathy makes my heart sing when I look out at the pond from the dining room table!
Read about Step 1 – the removal, renovation and replanting stage of the project – right here in next month’s blog.
In the meantime, let us know what you think about this project, and share any ideas you may have about how this area might be enhanced. Post a comment to tell us about similar projects you have completed. Cathy and I would love to hear about them.
If you would like to meet Cathy, she will be at the Henley Show on Saturday 14th September 2013 at the Henley Showground. She would be very happy to talk to you about how she can create the best garden for you.
About the Author: Lindsay McLoughlin runs www.proofedbylinds.co.uk, a copywriting, blogging and proofreading service. She has something of a love affair with social media and blogging. This article is part of her newly launched sponsored blog service, but you may also like to check out her “Writer meets…” series.