Day 114 - Their hedge is the world's edge

After completing the orchard replant, I immediately started on rebuilding the Rose Garden. This consisted, in the form in which I inherited it, of six not too big, irregularly-shaped beds, four at ground level, and two slightly raised behind a low brick wall. The intention according to the consultants' suggestion outlined in their original garden survey, was to plant the raised beds with pink roses, and the lower ones with white. I decided not to depart from this. However, it was not simply a case of throwing in some plants and walking away. It never is. The whole thing had to be started from scratch. The paths were infested with weeds, some were gravel, some were made of uneven crazy paving, and all were riddled with Lesser Bindweed. In addition, the surrounding beds, which consisted mostly of evergreen screens, were so overgrown as to be leaning over the rose beds and shading them out. Well, much of the reduction of the evergreen screen throughout the garden had been tackled the previous winter. I had cut dozens of bay trees, hollies and yews down to a manageable six to eight feet, and was allowing them to thicken up now to do their job properly. Over the rose beds there was also a large Griselinia littoralis, which had grown horizontally to a length of about fifteen feet, with a main stem of ten inches in diameter, and this had been lying across one of the beds I had to restore. I cut this down to ground level and allowed it to grow back up vertically as it was designed to do. I'll point it out in a minute when I get to a picture that shows it.

Anyway, I'm not a total iconoclast, although this garden might have benefited even more if I had been, so when it came to making decisions on what to do with the roses, I stuck mostly to the ideas that had been around for years. After all, this was where historically the owners would have sat on warm summer evenings chatting with guests over a glass of wine, spilling out from the house after dinner. On the other hand, I didn't feel bound by everything, especially as, to a trained eye, the place consisted mostly of mistakes. There was no focus anywhere, nothing led on to the next stop. All the statues, which could have contributed to a sense of focus if well-placed, had been stuck in out-of-the-way places, almost as if they were being deliberately obscured, which may well have been the case, as some of them were indicative of certain predilections which in those days one had to be careful not to advertise. Others would still raise an eyebrow even today, given the young age of some of the models. The garden also lacked consistency. What was the reason for the gravel paths merging into ugly crazy-paving? Fine, crazy-paving was fashionable in the period this garden was emerging, but the use of too many materials interferes with harmony and creates an unsettling effect. In view of the weed problems, I opted for discarding the crazy paving, and constructing the paths from gravel throughout, in the interests of uniformity, and giving me the opportunity to insert a weed-suppressing membrane under the surface. In fact I never got round to laying a nice firm path, but did a quick job with loose gravel initially for speed, with the intention of lifting it later when I had more time and rebuilding the paths for permanent use. What I did do worked well enough in the short-term, although it needed daily raking to level out the footprints.

The construction process required the paths to be dug out and the spoil removed, before setting in board edging, laying membrane and filling with gravel. During the process, this is what you would have seen -

The pale green shrub that has been heavily cut back just in front of the pruned bay trees in the centre of the picture is the Griselinia I mentioned. Formerly it had been growing over most of the bed it stands behind. Note also from the bare stems of the Portugal Laurels behind, that the bay trees had originally been that height too, and were waving about blocking out the morning sun. In future they would be maintained to a height of around eight feet, where they would continue to provide screening, but without taking over.

In the next picture, note the bed in the grass in front of the Rose Beds. That will be worth keeping in mind because soon it was to disappear to make way for an altogether better focus to this area. See how it is off centre with regard to the terrace and the roses? That works against an inclusive, welcoming feel to the whole area. I don't think anyone had tried to consider how all these elements work together. They had a lawn, and fancied a Rose terrace, and put one in without regard to what was around it. I tried to rectify that with my next phases, which I will show later. In the meantime, keep it in mind -

Look at the thing, slap bang in the not quite middle of what could be a nice embracing view, borrowing the trees from the gardens behind. You may wonder what is going on there. Is that bungalowland behind? Can this big five-acre garden belonging to famous artists really be surrounded by a modern estate full of people with horizons no wider than their hedge? I'll leave that for you to answer.

I'll show you this one again to remind you of how tall this off-kilter bed had been when I took up the job -

That's it on the right 12 feet tall and blocking the view. A bed full of nettles at the back too and some misshapen trees. We'll see what can be done with those later.