Paul Humphreys rambles on....

Paul Humphreys rambles on....
News and Views

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Monday September 27, 2004

My front garden

I live in Berkshire and have a small front garden and a sixty foot rear garden.

The soil is sandy with gravel on a small slope ( we are at the top of the slope..) and dries out very quickly.

When we moved in the front garden was covered with a dodgy ill looking patch of grass. I had already built a small pond in the rear garden and decided to do the same in the front. The pond takes over a lot of the available space and the final problem was what to do with the remainder of the space. I decided on covering the soil with a membrane which is porus and allows water through it while stopping weeds growing in the soil. This was then covered with pea gravel and I have planted several heathers, grasses and mahonia in the plot. The front endge of the plot has a dry stone wall and this has various alpine plants that are drought tolerant growing in it. A couple of hollyhocks have self seeded and I have left them to add a bit of extra colour.

The pond has a variety of water plants including lillies which look great. The abundance of water in the area in the form of the Thames and filled in ( with water) gravel pits means herons steal as many fish as you are prepared to buy...

The whole patch has matured now and in fact I have had to remove some plants as they had grown into each other. I also have daffodills around the edge of the pond and along the dry stone wall.

The good news is it is attractive, has colour especially in the spring and is easy to maintain.

( Sep 27 2004, 06:00:00 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Comments:

Hi Paul, Some pictures of your garden would be great! Kevin

Posted by Kevin Dunn on September 28, 2004 at 08:24 AM PDT #