What others say about my garden…

Winner of B&Q Gardener of the Year 2023

Welcome to my garden

If the Tardis were a garden then it might look like this! 

Even though it is tiny – little more than a yard-den (just 5.6m x 6.5m) there’s a sunny raised deck with glass balustrade allowing me to sit and view the garden from above and a shaded seating area for relaxing or alfresco suppers. A mini greenhouse for growing seedlings and tomatoes. A rectangular pond with a gentle waterfall provides calming sound and a haven for wildlife. There’s a smart bike store and lots and lots of plants too.

Three preached hornbeam trees provide privacy and a green wall. A raised bed and corten steel planters are full of lush planting with the occasional flash of white flowers. Every space is filled with plants including ferns, hydrangeas, anemone, hostas, hazel, bamboo, and roses. Wall topped planters squeeze in more planting space, and a environmentally friendly (but not very attractive) air-source heat pump is disguised beneath a shelf of potted plants. Even the water butt has a duel use hosting a potted water loving arum Lilly.

Stepping from the kitchen onto a small deck with glass balustrade allows me to view the garden from above. Entering the garden involves descending the steps from the deck – brushing past the rustling leaves of the bamboo and hearing the sound of trickling water into the pool, it feels like stepping into an open air terrarium. 

When we moved into the house 19 years ago the garden was an abandoned yard. Broken concrete with brambles and buddleia. A self-seeded sycamore tree threatened to push over the wall it grew against. Despite its small size and being sunken 1.5m lower than the house, I have created a plant filled show stopper green oasis where i can immerse myself in my love of plants.

Happy mistakes

Stackpool Road was my first proper garden I could call my own. I’d gardened before, but in rented property (usually shared with others) or as a lodger. This space was my own – although you’d have been pushing it to call it a garden when we moved in. It was re-Wilding in action, before that was even a thing!

It was sometime before I was at the planting stage. Clearing weeds, self seeded trees, broken concrete all came first. Then there was building the ‘bones’ of the garden with paving, the raised deck and a brick built raised bed. It was only after a very labour intensive weekend moving to huge bags of top soil from the back road to fill the new raised bed, was I ready to plant anything.

I sat on the sofa in front of the tv perusing plant catalogues, trying to work out what would grow best in this mostly shady spot. I knew I wanted something green and lush, and if possible some flowers – but that was about all I knew. I finally settled on Japanese Anemone, but which colour to choose – pink or white?

I wasn’t really sure what colour scheme I wanted at first – this was before I really understood that pale flowers stood out better in shady places, and certainly before my dreams of a white garden. So the choice was finally made, 3 9cm plants were ordered and they duly arrived and were planted in their new home.

Fast forward nearly 20 years and I’m certainly happy that I planted the anemone in a raised bed – know now of their spreading nature. As for the colour, well there were quite a few years when I rued my choice of pale pink. As late summer came and the blooms appeared, oh how I pined for clouds of pale white flowers rather than the candy floss pink.

Time, they say, is a healer – and in the case of the pink Anemone this is certainly the case. I have come to love their delicate but reliably hardy pink flowers. Waiting in anticipation for their small round buds to burst into life. For most of the year, white is the dominant colour, but come August the pink definitely steels the show.

One of my other garden joys – the hostas – make a perfect, but completely accidental, supporting act for the anemone. I suspect very few people but hostas for their flowers. They’re blue/purple spires and not their stand out feature, but in the right position they come into their own. The hostas are grouped in pots on the table on the deck and the anemone reach for the sky in the raises bed behind. The accidental combination of pale mauve and candy pink make a delightful – if completely accidental – view from my kitchen. Even mistakes can turn out to be happy ones in the end.

Wet, wet, wet

So much for summer, the weather over the past month has most certainly felt more like autumn. July turned out to be one of the wettest on record (the wettest ever in Northern Ireland) and August seems to continuing in the same vane. I’m not generally one to believe in myth or superstition, but i did note the weather on St Swithin’s Day (15 July) was particularly wet. It’s a date that always sticks in my mid as it was my mums, mums birthday. Myth goes that if it rains on St Swithin’s day, it will rain for a further 40 days and 40 nights. St Swithin was a Bishop of Winchester in the 800s. When he died he said he wanted to be buried in a simple grave outside the walls of the cathedral. His wishes were granted, but some time late his body was dug up an moved inside the cathedral. Legend has it that when St Swithin’s body was moved a great storm erupted and it rained for 40 days and nights. So the moral of the tale is don’t ignore someone’s last wishes about where they want to be hurried. Whether or not St Swithin is responsible for the wet July and August, who knows – but it certainly has its advantages. The pond is nicely topped up, the plants in the garden are lush and green and hardly any watering has been needed. I say hardly, but the tomatoes in the mini green house have needed watering and the odd pot has needed a good drench. Even when it rains heavily and persistently, It’s interesting to see the things that still don’t get a drink. There are always dry spots that avoid the rain. In my case its a large potted hydrangea that is situated in the shade under the hornbeam trees. Fortunately it’s wilted leaves have responded well to a can full of water and are now perked up and looking quite happy. I don’t mind the rain, but a couple of try days to be able to sit in the garden and enjoy all the lushness wouldn’t go amiss.

Twinkle, twinkle

There are some who wrinkle their nose at the thought of a begonia (Mr Monty Don being one), but for a shady garden that is prone to snails and slugs, the humble begonia is a stalwart. Most people tend to think of the more gaudy brightly coloured pinks and oranges when they think of begonias, but the more subtle white varieties a perfect for a shady spot. They are undeterred by a lack of sunshine, flowering right through the summer, and the slugs and snails don’t much fancy their think and fury leave. The white flowers are a delicate as the finest rose and sparkle in the shade like a twinkling star. Give begonias a chance I say.