What plans or changes do you have for your garden this year?
WonkyWomble
Posts: 4,468
My garden is overlooked by my kitchen window which is lovely as I sit at the table and stare out at my space. However this is an old town house made into two maisonettes; this means that my garden is also overlooked by the neighbours in the flat above whose kitchen is directly above ours.
I've wanted a form of screening for some time, but had been unable to come up with the right solution. I've now sketched a design for a sort of pergola that should provide some privacy.
Has anyone else been making plans or looking for solutions to problems in their garden? If so what projects do you have in mind? 
Last edited: 25 February 2017 09:08:53
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Pergola sounds good Wonky. You could grow grapes across it if the aspect is right or maybe perfumed roses and honeysuckle and go all romantic.
Pretty well a blank canvas here which will take years of fun to sort out. Plans include a potager to be almost self sufficient in fruit and veg and cut flowers; a fenced, courtyard garden with perfumed plants and winter interest; a gravel garden because we have the gravel but not yet a garden; shady beds for my hostas, pond clearance and re-planting to make a home for my gunnera; pergoal'd and trellised seating area and so on and so forth.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
A massive series of projects to tackle Obelixx! That's going to be fun
I want to visit the Beth Chatto garden sometime soon, there is a gravel garden that used to be a carpark I believe 
it could give you some inspiration.
I've got a honeysuckle that I've been growing in the planter for part of the pergola. I'm planning a single width of six posts going in an arch around a flowerbed. The eventual plan is to make a curved bench that backs onto the pergola arch. Thinking of making the top struts out of something bendy like willow strands woven so the can follow the line of the curve.
We will see how it goes!
Do you sketch out designs Obelixx? Or see it in your head and make it happen?
You should definitely go Wonky. I dragged OH off to Hyde Hall and Beth Chatto's last year after a day at the Chelsea flower show. We both loved BC's gravel garden which is flat and manages to be lush with foliage and colour but not so much the one at HH as it is a mound with great rocks all over the place and lots of acid yellow. Our gravelled area is flat.
It already has an oval bed around an albizia julibrissin that we have cleared of crud including landscape fabric and rocks, piled on 10 bags of compost and planted up with bulbs and some perennials. There is a smaller bed witha lilac tree that has just had the same treatment. The rest of the area has to wait till some building work has been done but I have found both autumn and spring daffs growing in it so they need rescuing.
I have a picture in my head but do try and draw things to scale. For the veg plot, I'm playing with Sutton's vegetable planner software as it will be raised beds with grass paths.
There's an entry charge for BC's garden but you can also by a season ticket which may be worth thinking about if it's near enough to go a few times and see it through the seasons.
May 2016 - http://s211.photobucket.com/user/Obelixx_be/library/160527%20Beth%20Chatto%20-%20Essex?sort=2&page=1
http://s211.photobucket.com/user/Obelixx_be/library/160526%20Hyde%20Hall%20-%20RHS%20garden%20in%20Essex?sort=2&page=1
Last edited: 25 February 2017 11:14:32
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
My garden is also many perennials DHR. I need some all round year interest though so I'm doing my research. Pulling weeds from the rockery sounds like a chore! Think you have the right idea taking everything out and making sure you get all the stray bits you don't want in there and then replanting. It will stop you having to do it again next year hopefully!
Last edited: 25 February 2017 11:15:57
I am taking my perennial borders in hand. Looking at old photos of 5+ years ago, they were much more colourful then. Seems I have been too complacent since then ie neglectful! so in my head I have made new planting plans and ordered a shed load of new plants from peter NYssen and Sarah raven. Hopefully what's in my head will translate to the ground!
also getting loads of work done in and on the house in the next few months so it is going to be a busy spring!
i have been drawn to orange plants - should I be concerned?
Love orange plants Hogweed! My totally tangerine geum has been flowering all through winter!
You must take photos so we can share the before and after experience Hogweed!
think Dove and I will plan a visit to Beth Chattos sometime Obelixx. I'm very curious from what I've heard and the features I've seen on it. I hope you will be giving us a photographic progress of your plans also! I'm interested in that software that your using, might have to investigate
DHR 1) are your giant lilies in the ground or in pots?
2) are they quite hardy?
I'm planning to attack the lake.
I've got dozens of candelabra primulas and dozens of arum lilies and dozens of water lilies in readiness.
I might even have a few hostas.
Last edited: 25 February 2017 14:12:52
No
Fab with deep purple. Love them - theplants, not the band ...
Hostas - you Hosta? Never....
I've just bought more white hellebores. All will be revealed at a later date as I have a cunning plan...
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...