Obviously, I was pretty keen to show off the best the garden had to offer, and although I could have concentrated on self-aggrandisement and told them all about how clever I had been so far with my restoration, which I undoubtedly did, I was also at pains to show off what the garden had going for it. Which, in all honesty was only the Mulberry tree, and that only existed in its present state because of my intervention. I hope it is evident by now, that the garden's main attraction was its Garden Manager. For those of you who are not well-versed in these matters, I should point out here that I am attempting through irony to inject humour into my text. Probably best to show you the Mulberry again -
Alternatively, for those of you who like to see an entertainer at work, here he is counting out his pedantic and dictatorial points on the fingers of one hand -
Sincere face, right? Even though I always tried to play it for laughs. It's got to look like fun for those who aren't there all winter in the cold and rain. Appropriately, this was April Fool's Day.
A day later, I took a series of photos of various aspects of the garden in its next phase of restoration. These included another look at the Mulberry and its underplantings as they grew -
I had been working on shade-tolerance and a contrast of fresh foliage between the purple Euphorbias and the white Dicentras, which was starting to look good. And I so loved the gnarly old split trunk, which I thought should on no account disappear from view -
The borders opposite the Rose Garden were now planted up, but still looked quite sparse as I had only recently finished the job. Nevertheless, I am sure the improvement is evident even at this early stage. There are shots from various different angles, none of which shows the main point of the design, which is how it is viewed from the terrace. At this stage, I was interested in keeping a record of the plants themselves, not how they contributed to the ambience. And as you know, that is an emphasis which I consider unimportant. The plants are the materials with which the work of art is created, and not the purpose in their own right, however interesting they may be as individuals. The first pic is looking back towards the terrace from the far end, showing the new bed I had created -
The next picture is from the other direction, taking in the border that ran up the left side of the lawn -
This one shows the old well and the holiday cottage behind it, at the top end of the same lawn. This border was entirely new. Note the carefully clipped ivy on the cottage, which was a restoration job in itself -
Looking from the orchard back towards the cottage, the new beds looked like this -
All of this took a lot of plants, and huge quantities of my home-made compost and wood-chip mulch. I think it is now clear why my first winter on the job had led to clearance work being completed but no major new plantings. I needed to tidy up, and make space first, and then produce the compost which this hungry, dry soil was going to require in the future. There is an order to everything. It is worth taking the time to follow it.
The final picture for today shows the new bed which encloses the right-hand side of the lawn when seen from the terrace, but here is seen from the orchard beyond it. Some fine plants went in here, but it would not be doing its job until it began to form a screen between the terrace and the orchard. Only then would the garden start to have secrets to deliver. Over five and a half acres, you shouldn't be able to see it all at once -
Other photos were taken on the same day, but I intend to withhold them till tomorrow, as they are concerned with a completely different project, which at this stage was only just beginning.
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