Redesign of garden - Page 2

Six in, two to go.  This is all

very exciting.

awsome raised beds dude

They are great raised beds happymarion, I wish my garden was big enough to take 8 of them, I've only managed to squeeze in 3, as you can see.  I still manage to

 grow quite a lot though. This was taken last year.

Eight beds all built and installed. Paths next.  I like your corner, donutsmrs.

Those raised beds are great, i only have 1 but i also have lots of pots to keep my plants in.

This year i am hoping to grow parsnips in them.

Hi we started our back garden project late last summer -an odd shaped  small garden builders rubble from our extension project and many pots from our previous house garden rooms were not really an option but a priority list was and we love to cook on the BBQ as many months of the year as poss you can also see all our garden from the various french windows .So we put some trellis up from the house right out into the middle to break up the view and bingo interest right from the start put an Arbour in a corner as that is how the garden is shaped  and even before we stared digging and planting everyone who called said your garden looks bigger,no lawn now just borders ready for perennials we spent quite heavily on the trees and structure plants and I have never thought small but I have picked very carefully my husband made fan trellis which we have covered all our fencing with and the climbers are in a we built a pagola as well following Geoff Hamiltons old instructions and now I am saving to do the tall plants first for the back of the borders only unusal plants go in this garden and only things I love this is a great oppurtunity when you star from scratch so go for it think big think height and do not forget the boundarys can go upwards as well and good luck.PS we dug out a skip full of concrete plus 4 kerbstones

Great to see everyone's posts (I replied earlier to the original post).  The garden is my domain (the allotment is the hybbys) so when it came to redesigning it I asked him what he wanted.  His only request was 'no grass'.  He was a greenkeeper at the time and I think he must have thought it would be a bussman's holiday if after cutting grass allday, he would come home to cutting more grass!

Last year the garden was a bit of a write off as we got a new (very lively) springer spaniel puppy who loved nothing more than racing around the (smallish) garden.  I cut back all the perennials he ate or broke off and am anticipating that they will come back again this year - he's a year old today and although is still bonkers, does stick to the paved areas of the garden now!

At the allotment we have also created 8 large raised beds.  Spent a couple of weekends barrowing in bark chippings that a kindly tree surgeon let us have!  Looks good now.  Cant wait to start planting up - potatoes are already chitting at home, seeds delivered and planting plan created!  Roll on the warmer weather!

My potager should be finished next week.  Of course, I could not resist starting to dress it with

my white crocuses,

I'm just about to start tackling my garden (at the designing a plan stage) so it's great seeing all the pictures. Well done to all of you. Here's hoping I can match it!

Just finished moving 8 tons of compost I  had delivered from S Glos Council earlier this week. Raised beds now full and I have a huge pile left for improving the flowerbeds.

Happily I had been given some Argos vouchers some time ago and used it to buy a little qualcast electric tiller. I really wanted a slightly bigger, more powerful one, but as I had the vouchers got this one with a little trepidation. Fantastic little machine. 16' x 4' raised bed of fairly compacted earth plus a pile of compost into a 8" deep fine tilth in less than15 minutes.

Thanks for the info on the University gardens Marion.

My potager was finished on Tuesday and I am now busy filling the eight raised beds.

Hi happymaion,it looks great, but I still don't understand what a potager is?

Is it raised beds that grow veg & flowers, so not needing the need for digging?

M

Meiow - a potager is simply a decorative veg, garden.  The design can have raised beds but not necessarilly.  The important thing is the design so that the veg. part of the garden is pleasant to sit in as well as useful.  Very popular in France, hence the French name.  My raised beds mean no digging and less bending at my age.  But the great thing about potagers ia that you can incorporate up-to-date thinking about gardening.  Flowers in the beds as well as veg. means more pollinators and food for bees and butterflies.  Patterns made by the veg. are more restful to the eye than straight lines. Not having great clumps of the same veg. means less chance of disease and organic gardening is possible and productive.  I will keep you informed of the progress of my potager with pictures, but I already love to sit in the middle and dream up schemes and combinations for the various beds.  So the design is a successful one - the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

I like the idea of flowers in the veggie plot, too.   Two years ago we suffered badly from blackfly, but last year we edged the whole veggie section with different marigolds, and had no trouble at all.   It looked terrific, and due to the mild winter they kept flowering well into February this year!  

Our nasturtiums, grown on the opposite side of the garden, did suffer with blackfly last year, so we shall grow them together with marigolds in future.

dug up flower border in autumn. added compost and manure in winter. now just planted broad beans,potatoes and onions