This summer was my fifth at Bluebell Cottage Gardens. Conventional wisdom has it that you should spend at least a year in a garden and observe it carefully before making major changes, rather than rushing in.  Fortunately for the garden, my vast appetite for change has been more than sated until now by the huge potential presented by vast areas of unwanted lawn.

In the first winter we created two new 100 square metre beds and filled them with drifts of perennials and grasses. I converted the tired yellow garden to the vibrant exotic garden in the second winter, created the bird border in the third, and turned the prim lawns under the fruit trees into the Orchard Meadow in the fourth. 
But all these well-received changes only served to show how aged and lacklustre the two largest borders have become. The Canal border hasn’t been overhauled since it was planted 20 years ago. And that is a very long time to leave Lysimachia clethroides and Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ to spread unchecked. I also think it’s just too dull – it lacks height and any sense of rhythm.
So, the canal border’s time has come. I’ll try uploading a drawing, but imagine, if you will, a straight border 25m by 5m with round ends. Its long northern border is bounded by a 2m wide strip of lawn, then rises to a mixed hedge of hawthorn and elm. On the other side of the hedge is the towpath side of the Trent and Mersey Canal.
On the long south side is a very wide grass path. Opposite it are the two square borders that I created in 2008, shown here, with large drifts of herbaceous perennials and grasses.

The grand plan is to add height to the back of the canal border with trees which will carry through to the woodland corner at the far end. The height will scale down to a herbaceous leading edge which will echo the colours and shapes in the borders opposite.
So, to work. The first job was to lift the grass path at the back and alter the front line to better match the borders opposite. 
The wooden post in the foreground is at the edge of the border in the picture below…
Next, we extended the border at the end closest to the camera to include an established Prunus serrula which had been sitting in a little island bed on its own. Two young P. serrula have been added along the emerging woodland path  which will weave along the back of the border. 
And with the weather with us, this week we finished digging out the last of the old perennials and cleared the border. All the perennials we want to re-use have been lined out in the border and labelled.
Finally, for now, we lugged the four Betula nigra that we used at Tatton Show in ‘Grasses with Grace’ through the nursery, up through the orchard and into the newly emptied border. These will add height to the back and punctuate the space, creating distinct sections into which I can plant the taller perennials.

That’s it for the moment. This ongoing mild spell has me slightly in a quandary as to what to do next. It’s getting late for planting perennials and grasses. But the soil is still so warm and light that it seems too good an opportunity to miss. And there is so much else to do in spring. I’ll probably make a start and hope for the best. 

October 31, 2011