Small, North-Facing Garden
Kismet
Posts: 10
We've recently bought a house with a small, north-facing garden. We are fairly clueless about gardening but keen to keep a tidy garden and perhaps grow a few edibles. Hopefully this link will work for images.
Any suggestions for the front? As you can see, we have a small hedge. I'm not thrilled with it for a few reasons but don't know if anything can/should be done. One is that it's been planted in a tiny strip of land, so it is starting to bring up the paving stones behind it. Another issue is that it looks a bit strange over winter, as some of it is full and some sparse. It offers privacy, however. And I have seen a few birds enjoying it.
I'd also like to balance it out with something near the other corner of the house. I had hoped for a small tree, maybe a Juneberry? But don't know if it is possible to plant anything there as there is a metal plate in the ground.
We get sun in the front but not much in the back, so wasn't sure if we could plant one or two edibles out there, or perhaps a window box with flowers.
In the back we don't have much space, but the lawn seems to be doing well. We have no clue what's already there but have gotten some help in identification from another forum.
Could I plant some sort of climber along that side wall in the back garden? It faces east and likely wouldn't get much sun, if any.
Or perhaps a climber on the side of the house? I love the idea of roses somewhere.
Sorry for the long post! Looking for any ideas on where to start. What would you do if this was your garden?
Posts
I would remove everything, even the grass and then grow edibles that also are beautyful, like artichokes, hostas, strawberries, blackcurrants etc. And the wall should be perfect for tomatoes if it is facing south.
Thanks Fire Lily. Will tomatoes grow outside? I was under the impression that they'd need to be in a greenhouse. I also forgot to mention that we are in East Mids. I'd love to have fresh tomatoes, though!
There are all sorts of tomatoes, there are even varieties that can grow outside here in Sweden. So no, not all tomatoes need to be in a greenhouse, just check when you buy the seed/plant.
Fire Lily says :
" grow edibles that also are beautyful, like artichokes, hostas, strawberries, blackcurrants etc"
Please don't eat the Hostas.
Hahahaha, maybe you should go to Japan where they are grown as a crop and free them all?
Thank you, that looks amazing! We probably won't make any major changes like that for a while (need to redo inside of house first), but I really like the idea of having a patio round the side. It never would have occurred to me to do something like that. I'm great at visualizing changes inside but not used to applying that to the outside as well.
Thank you, Mrs Glaze! We do have one hydrangea on the back wall and it's beautiful. I agree that the hedge looks good when it's full, it just looks awful over the winter. I don't think we will do a total redesign for a while, but it's nice to keep it in mind as we experiment this year.
Watch and wait a year.