I fell in love with my garden

My dad is an avid gardener and has been for as long as I know. So, it probably should have clicked with me much sooner, this garden love, but it only really happened this year and now I've got it bad.

It all started with a conversation, about February time, when my dad and I were chatting about the garden and I was complaining that ours only gets brief sunshine and is a silly shape and we have an ugly garage spoiling it and lots of aggressive shrubs take over everywhere and I just have no time to sort it out. Then I said to him "If I were starting from scratch I wouldn't have all of those shrubs there" and he said "Well, we could dig those out, no problem." It was like a light bulb going on. As silly as it seems, I honestly hadn't considered just digging them out and starting again! I'd resigned myself to being stuck with the garden the way it was. Dig them out, of course, that's what I'd do! These shrubs I spoke of with such resentment had been planted by the previous house owners before they put the property up for sale, my neighbour told me. I suppose it was an attempt to make the garden look more attractive but they really hadn't done me any favours. I didn't even know what they were, they were just a source of much annoyance, reaching over next door every spring and sending up shoots all over the place, bullying smaller plants that I'd attempted to grow. Looking back now, this dislike for the shrubs was probably founded in inexperience, I didn't know how to manage them and I blamed them for that.

How the garden was
Just to set the scene a little. Our garden is long and narrow, its not a big garden but it is a respectable size for a suburban semi. Along the right hand side is a bed filled with the infamous shrubs and not much else, backed by our neighbours' wooden fence. At the bottom there are about 6 gigantic leylandii which block such a lot of light and suck the soil dry in that part of the garden. In front of the leylandii is a little pond, about a metre wide and in the bottom left corner a lovely greenhouse which has been used to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, salad, peppers and chillies for several years (I dabbled with a veg patch for a couple of years too). Along the left hand side is a dilapidated asbestos garage which is no use at all other than for storing junk that we haven't yet taken to the tip and running alongside the garage wall is a path made from randomly shaped slabs. In the middle is the lawn, it's a strange, thin shape and gets mowed when its untidy but that's as much care as it receives. Up close to the house is a little concreted area with an old coal house and ironically this space has the most plants, dotted around in a few pots. Hopefully, that paints the dull picture of my garden as it was, plain, a pain and lacking in colour.

New possibilities
So, with the thought in my mind that there was the possibility of a garden without the monstrous shrubs I couldn't wait to start hacking at their branches and roots, creating a fresh canvas and a trouble-free border. Before then though, there was another big task to be done, I needed to move the pond. Now, this pond was a great draw for me when we came to view our house as prospective buyers because I'd always wanted a pond. To my disappointment on moving day I discovered it had been filled in (with bricks and rocks) and covered with soil. Why would someone do that?! Anyway, after spotting confused frogs looking for a place to spawn, a few months later I dug out the rocks and put the water back in. The pond was poorly positioned though, right at the bottom of the garden where in the summer the sun blazes all day, where neighbours cats get in and hassle the frogs and where debris from the overlooking leylandii drops in and rots. The poor frogs were suffering so I was moving the pond to a cooler, clearer and safer spot closer to the house.

The pond move & shrub clearance
It is the moving of the pond and the removal of the shrubs that started my garden revolution. Both were back-breaking jobs and took a few weeks in total, grabbing a few hours here and there to do a bit more, but seeing the difference it made showed me what else was possible. Once I'd dug out the new pond, lined it, and transferred the early frog spawn from the old pond I started to build a little rockery around it, put in a few bedding plants, placed my Japanese maple in a pot nearby and added some grasses. It looked great! I had the beginnings of a little garden, that actually looked pretty, with flowers and colour. This little corner wasn't just green & brown like everywhere else and every time I saw it my heart gave a little leap. I'm well and truly smitten.

So, with most of the massive shrubs gone I had an empty border all along one side of the lawn with good loam soil, just ready for new plants. I went to plant stalls, garden centres and nurseries and my dad and sister and brother-in-law and my friend, Claire swapped plants with me. I wanted to grow all kinds of plants of different shapes and sizes with flowers of all colours and scents. Then in June my brother-in-law and I went to the Gardeners' World Live show and my interest went up a notch. We were like kids in a sweet shop - so many ideas, so many plants to discover. The rest of the year saw many more visits to nurseries and plant fairs so I could feed my happy little addiction.

Letting in the light
After that, more changes came in quick succession. First of all we decided to have the towering leylandii cut down to a manageable size. They must have easily been 20 metres high and had really got out of hand, keeping the garden and house behind us in shade all day. Unfortunately when they were cut back they revealed that they weren't well at all, so eventually they will need to come out completely and I'd like to replace them with a Hawthorne hedge for the wildlife. Then my father and mother-in-law very kindly offered to arrange for the derelict garage to be taken away. It was asbestos so it needed to be dismantled and disposed of properly by men in protective all-in-one suits and masks. After the garage and the treetops were gone, the garden really opened up. I'd always thought of it as a dark and shady space but suddenly there was so much light!

The best family ever
I had been showing my sister and brother-in-law how the garden was coming along and talked about how the baking hot part right at the bottom, by the greenhouse, would make a great seating area. Its too dry for most plants to survive under the big trees and is the only place that sees the sunshine all day. So, being clever like that my brother in law said, "Well we can put some block paving down there". The big work party day was organised in no time. My generous family and parents-in-law all came together to help us (brother in-laws did the tricky bits, the rest of us provided extra hands with the mums in charge of tea and food and my dad really putting his back into it) lay the beautiful grey and red bricks. At the same time my dad-in-law and dad installed some reed screening around the edge of the area where the garage used to be and fixed the wonky back gate. My brother-in-laws moved and fitted the water butt to the outhouse drain too so that I could finally make proper use of it. I was stunned at how much work was done in one afternoon and was completely overwhelmed at how much the garden had changed. Until then I'd done all of it on my own and it had been a long process. It was a completely different place than it was 6 months ago.

A couple more changes included taking up the pointless garden path, stain the wood fencing and make a little trellis fence and gate close to the house to keep the rabbits away from my precious plants.

Falling in love with the garden
Over that time I completely fell in love with my garden, not necessarily because of removing things I disliked but because of the possibility that the changes presented. By August when all of the plants in the newly shaped beds and in the planters on the patio were at their best I could see what the new garden had allowed. There were buddleja, poppies, dianthus, echinacea, gaura, nicotiana, cosmos, sunflowers all alive and brilliant and giving such a lot without asking for much in return.There were tiny seedlings that I'd watched pop through the soil for the first time growing tall, reaching up for the sun. So many hoverflies and bees buzzing around collecting pollen and even the odd dragonfly enjoying the pond, resting on the lily. This space in our home had come alive and given huge amounts of enjoyment along the way.

Now that autumn is well and truly here and winter is just around the corner, significant changes are happening in the garden again but those are changes governed by nature. This weekend I tidied up the finished annuals, cut back the perennials and deadheaded the last flowers. I quietly said a little thank you to them and that I can't wait to see them next year.

We achieved a huge amount in the garden this year and already I have so many plans for next year. I want to make the borders wider and lose more lawn, create a windy path to follow and discover hidden treasures along the way, add trees for height to attract the birds and grow more flowers from seed that will bring in the bees and butterflies. I want to learn more about the biology of plants, the different types, their ideal conditions and how to propagate them. I can't get enough and I love it!

See more pictures below of how the garden changed in 6 months.