The glasshouse was looking somewhat unkempt. A sunny day brought a surge of energy. Everything taken outside; inside cleared of cobwebs, dead leaves and general debris. Windows and shelving cleaned and then everything returned to its place. So glad I brought the kitchen table from the old house.
Out with the pickaxe again! This time to break up the rubble compacted by the landscapers along the edge of the bed outside the stable annexe. I wanted to plant a little lavender hedge but knew the drainage would not be sufficient. It was a tough job for such a short little ditch… but revealed plenty of stones to line it with to create what I hope will be a welcoming home for the lavender plants.
I also moved the standard Olivia Austin rose which had been in too much shade. Fresh new growth appeared almost overnight!
This is what it looked like a year ago:
And this was almost exactly two years ago! The little crabapple tree has happily survived all the chaos.
I am greedy. For plants and for their produce.
Hence the purchase of two damson trees (Merryweather and Farleigh, both AGM varieties) when there is really no more space for planting. Necessity provided the answer: grow them as cordons against the vertical supports of the vegetable enclosure so they don’t create unnecessary shadow.
Pick axe, heavy spade and determination, daunting volume of excavated stones, bricks and builders’ junk, muddy knees and strained back – then a starter indulgence of micorrhizal fungi, Climate Compost, leaf mould and manure to aid the roots before they have to find a way through the harsh terroir beyond.
Unpromising tufts above ground revealed pale treasures below. Tender & True parsnips grown from direct sown seeds last spring and rather forgotten about since.
and a few last carrots Lila Lu from Vital Seeds
There are four of them, each a different variety, lining “Dingley Dell” leading down to the stable annexe. They must have been planted originally as espaliers; you can clearly see the distinctive shape high up, way above the wall – presumably they didn’t have dwarf root stock in the 1800s. So high that it’s pretty well impossible to reach the fruit to harvest, even with a special expandable pole fruit picker. Instead, I scavenge daily for windfalls which can then be quickly peeled, cubed and gently poached with maple syrup into a delicious amber confection, delicious with cream – or made into a cake.
Along with species-rich turf, germinating grass seed and several new trees, the installation of hornbeam hedging has transformed the poor battered ground in the lower garden into a green and pleasant land.
And the pond is now home to some welcome tadpoles, gifted by kind neighbours.
Who knew such a thing was possible?! As age suggests that waiting years for saplings to grow would be a bad idea, here it is – a 2 metre high hornbeam hedge! Plus trees planted: hawthorn ‘Paul’s Scarlet”, multi-stemmed katsura & cornus kousa ‘China Girl’. And beyond the hedge in front of the stable are a gage (dug up from the old allotment and having endured many months in a black bin bag!) and multi-stemmed prunus serrula alongside the established crabapple. Now just waiting for the grass seed to germinate…
My intention to re-create the wonderful allotment of yore at the bottom of the garden here was sadly thwarted by the sheer volume of rubble that had to be incorporated into the ground during the clearing process. However determined, making a kitchen garden there, it had to be faced, was impossible. What to do?
I do not like raised beds as a rule, but the only solution turned out to be one gigantic raised bed. See below for the process in pictures:
Some time ago, on a gardening TV programme, I learned that there is a rose dedicated to Lady MacRobert. She suffered the tragic loss of all three sons in RAF service during WW2 and subsequently commissioned a Stirling bomber which was named “MacRobert’s Reply”. My father was a pilot throughout the war, with over 1,500 hours on Stirlings, more than anyone else. So it seemed appropriate to find this rose to plant in my late parents’ garden which I am now regenerating.
Well, I searched and searched but could not find anywhere that sells this rose. In the end, on a whim, I sent an email for the attention of the Head Gardener at Douneside House, the MacRobert family home. Some months later, having forgotten all about it, I had a response – the rose is not available commercially and is very rarely gifted (except to the King!). However, Mr McCallum very kindly sent me a bare root rose in remembrance of my father. It’s very lovely and flowered this week for the first time. I think my dear daddy would have been pleased.
I have no idea how this rose came to implant itself high on the wall, with no apparent source of nutrition, but here it is. With no evident relation in the garden, it even managed to be the perfect colour to complement the wall behind it!
It’s been a testing process but the stable conversion is now nearly finished; final electrics and plumbing should be completed this week… everthing has been difficult in the relentless rain and mud that has prevailed. It will be a happy day when the turfing is installed around the stable and glasshouse and I can actually start to plant up the beds.
The steps are done – modelled on recreating a beautiful moment at Sissinghurst :- )
And as building regs required a soakaway to be dug, entailing substantial invasive digging anyway, we decided to use the opportunity to install a subterranean tank to harvest rainwater. I had to use all my powers of imagination to hold the dream of an organic green paradise while the works were underway!
It’s all a far cry from the impenetrable jungle of just 18 months ago…. and I sometimes miss its wild improbability right in the centre of town, guilty for creating such devastation – but creation requires destruction and this project ensures protection from future developers and continuation into the future as a precious secret hortus conclusus. I must hold my nerve!
Work has now started on the stable development, hampered by the annoying discovery that the existing drain is no longer viable. But the outside has been repointed and the steps to the upper garden are nearly finished. Adjoining the glasshouse area, the seating area is nearly fully slabbed, with planting pockets and beds all marked out.
Bank Holiday Monday’s efforts – removing a LOT of stones from the newly created planting bed in the glasshouse base. Then the satisfying job of adding compost lugged from my precious heap in Hampshire (sadly depleted as one of the workmen “helpfully” added several sacks of precious black gold to the skip before I realised….. )
There were very few worms in the reclaimed soil, but hope that the addition of leaf mould and compost will encourage new life and structure over time. Meantime, I go about looking for stray worms to rehome… :- )
The glasshouse brick (half reclaimed to match old walls…) base is now complete. Digger still sifting out huge pile of debris to be broken into hardcore but also a good amount of topsoil emerging from the chaos.
If you look carefully, you can see the tips of some surrounding dreaming spires of Stamford…
After much drama entailing the delivery of massive steel beams and two lorry loads of cement being wheelbarrowed down the lane by a procession of 6 men (one of whom fell in and had to be rescued!), the foundations for the glasshouse are finally in place.
… and the reclaimed york paving has been skillfully laid in the upper terrace – planting areas still bare but at least now not covered in rubble. Rotten fence removed and ugly block wall painted by me – not perfect but much better and will anyway soon be covered in trachelospermum jasminoides (in my dreams…) I’m desperate to get plants in, but restraining myself until the wall has been surfaced and the mess cleared so as to give a proper perspective – and time to feed the soil.
With all the chaos of the land clearing and digging, I had abandoned all thoughts of any harvest this year. But the ancient fig tree was quietly doing its thing in the background…
All my life I have dreamed of having a victorian style glasshouse and having the space for one was a big factor in moving here. The process towards its realisation continues to be wearisome (planning permission…), expensive (landscaping/ground works) and complicated (big old wall/structural engineer/archaelogist(!) – not to mention finding not one, but two old wells when clearing the ground…
But the new little retaining wall in the top garden is underway, reclaimed york paving ordered…
…and the opening in the brick wall where steps will go down to the lower garden has been made 🙂
Huerto 
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