Change of Plan

Change in all things is sweet

Aristotle

This was my plan:

buy Dorset cottage for restoration in December, move in in early summer. Meanwhile, develop the garden to be 'ready' at the same time as the cottage. 

Stepping stones to aid harvesting

Things haven't quite worked out like that! The garden is very small and runs just behind the house, so, as the restoration takes its time, it is really more of a building site than a garden, with the original concrete paving still in place, providing a hard-standing for piles of flints, scaffolding and dump bags of sand. We need a plan B for this season, delaying the sculpting of the garden and subsequent planting till the autumn.

I have created a little nursery bed for the precious plants brought from the previous garden. The idea of the continuity of taking plants that we have come to love, and also plants given by friends, is very appealing. Discoveries have been squirreled away into terracotta pots, herbs have been bought from the local garden shop and market, and the plant swap in the village yielded some new treasures. I have also sown Primula auricula and a few annuals for colour. Now that what I thought was guelder rose (Viburnum opulus) is in full flower, I can see that it is in fact Viburnum plicatum, its white lace-cap flowers lighting up the darkest part of the garden.

The mystery shrub revealed

The ground has been dug, but at the moment is pregnantly blank. I remember reading an article in the RHS magazine about quick-maturing vegetables and this is the very place to put them. They will occupy the tilled earth, now warm, and we shall enjoy that very satisfying thing that is plucking veg from the garden and putting it straight into the cooking pot.

We must cultivate our garden

We must cultivate our garden

Voltaire 
 

One of the joys of a new garden is discovering its secrets as the seasons roll. I had thought that having removed the scruffier shrubs from the garden in Dorset there would be nothing much left. Each time I venture there, though, I find that something new has pushed its way up into the light.

There will soon be sturdy trellis to support a new generation of climbers

 

During the spring there have been a few daffodils and a couple of narcissi. Some Scilla with bright blue starry faces, almost too fragile to survive, were scattered about. I collected them up and put them in a little drift by the sunny wall. Small clumps of primroses and some cyclamen clung to corners near bits of stone, and Spanish bluebells still hold their foliage green and upright. Some wispy green blades sent up a flower of pale blue Iris sibirica; I shall keep my eye on it and, when the time is right, divide it, to give it a new lease of life. A little bundle of twigs has revealed itself to be a hardy fuchsia, and the leaves of Japanese anemone, and garden loosestrife give away the identity of the plants. Ferns have unfurled and I find them a place at the base of the walls. A herbaceous clematis has sent up foot-high shoots, some of which have been chewed by a hungry animal – probably a pigeon – and soon the flower buds will show their colours and I shall know its variety. Whenever I identify something, I put a little wooden label by it and write its name in a notebook for future reference.

Delicate new leaves and flowers on the Acer

The climbers on the walls are in full leaf and the hydrangea petiolaris has emerging flowers. Now I can see which wood is dead and which is alive, but bringing the roses, vine and honeysuckle back to healthy freedom will take a couple of seasons, I think. Some spindly branches put out leaves tipped in white and pink and now there are little clusters of white flowers: this is Actinidia kolomikta, a relative of the kiwi fruit. The Clematis cirrhosa is showing signs of new growth and seems to like its new home.

There is an unwelcome discovery as well. A short, fat slug hides under a stone and I can tell just by looking at it that it has a big appetite. A walled garden is heaven for slugs, but to my mind they are not heavenly creatures. I don't have bad feelings towards them in general, they just aren't welcome in my garden. Time for another dose of nematodes!