We first looked at this house, with a view to buying it, in the spring of 2006.

The outside space ticked many of the boxes;- studio space, shed for Shedman, and [...]]]>

This week my ’spring border’ was at its peak and I have charted its progress over the past three years.

We first looked at this house, with a view to buying it, in the spring of 2006.

The outside space ticked many of the boxes;- studio space, shed for Shedman, and a nice sized garden.

When I looked around the garden prior to buying the house, this is the area that became the ’spring border’

Spring 2006

By the time the summer arrived and we moved in, everything in the garden had grown large and lush -

Although the Jerusalem Artichokes in the flower beds seemed to be the largest and lushest!

That first summer we spent time removing  the ivy from all the walls in the garden to reveal the stonework.

September 2006

By the following April, we had done some redesigning of the top end of the garden and put in a path down the garden.

But the area next to the wall was still sadly neglected.

April 2007 – looking back towards the house.

During the summer – everything grew up lush and green (again) and looked quite attractive if somewhat wild.

Well, Actually most of the plants were somewhat wild.

July 2007

In 2008 we turned our attention to this area.

As we dig a huge amount of stones out of the garden every day.  It seemed sensible to utilize some of them in a path.

(Shedman says there are quite a few stones in the path, probably a couple of tons)

The path now has a dry riverbed feel to it.  Although it is not the most comfortable of paths to walk on – I don’t mind as it is a secondary path through the garden.

We moved or dug up everything that was growing in the narrow band of soil against this wall, which included some very sad hydrangeas and lots of willow saplings.  This meant I had a totally blank canvass when the time came to plant.

March 2008

We widened the flowerbed to 5 feet at its narrowest point and altered the shape to a gentle curve.

Shedman dug soil and I weeded out tree roots, couch grass and a lot of other things as well.  By April 2008 it was nearly ready to start planting.

April 2008

In the picture above, you will see that I could not restrain myself and had all ready bought a couple of Dicentra in anticipation of planting the flower bed!

I am pleased by how quickly the area has matured. Although I had the advantage of being able to move established hellebores from other areas of the garden.  I also had a beautiful Camellia which had been languishing in a pot for about 4 years. We discovered a neglected Pieris in another part of the garden.  These plants, combined with new plants, both bought in and grown from seeds and cuttings have knitted together well, giving a succession of foliage and colour from early spring onwards.

I am delighted with the result.

April 2009

I will be absent from the blogging world for the next three weeks or so.

I have a lot going on just now …. all good, just very time consuming and taking all my spare energy.

(Although I may try to keep up with posting on the Turning Year – but it may be a lot of studio “stuff”).

Many thanks for all your great comments recently.  I do appreciate your visits and normal blogging (reading, writing and commenting) will return to the Artist’s Garden at the end of May.

Plant List

Pieris – variety unknown
Camellia – Anticipation
Hellebores mature x 5
Hellebores rooted cuttings x6
Heucherella Kimono
Pulmonaria
Solomon’s Seal
Dicentra Alba
Dicentra
Ligularia dentate Desdemona
Sambucus Black Beauty
Alchemilla Mollis
Self Seeded Foxgloves, primrose, lily of the valley and Aquilegia
Symphytum “Hidcote Blue”
Heuchera (possibly plum pudding)
Leucothoe ‘Rainbow”
Clematis Montana ‘alba’