Last week was a bit of a sad one but at least I did finish writing my book. I didn’t order my first greeting card proofs though. This has taken a back seat so that I can have a few days off. The problem with being self employed and working from home, is that you are never really switched off from work but after last week, when our family suffered a tragedy, I decided it was time to just put the breaks on and focus on the garden because I was too grief stricken really to do anything else.

So now my gardening as therapy blog is even more of a gardening therapy blog than it was before.

On the subject of writing, while I was gardening this week, I realised that gardening was a lot like writing. You have to get it all out there, splat it all out on a page, get the main bits of the story in the right place, the structure, essential plot and the characters. Then when it’s all in place you can tweak and hone and edit it until you have a masterpiece. That’s how writing works and I’m beginning to see gardening is the same. No wonder gardening is so attractive to so many creative people.

So I’m at the ‘getting it all out there’ stage; the splat on the page; getting down the main characters and the plot, which is that the garden should be both edible and beautiful. Surely a garden doesn’t have to look like an allotment to be fruitful. My garden at this stage though is all looking a bit uncouth, unrefined, lacking in nuance and sophistication, but it is at least, starting to take shape. The chapters are roughing out nicely. First chapter was pruning and shaping the box, cutting down trees for more light, and planting a rose hedge. Chapter two, is the lumpy, unsophisticated (at the moment) herb garden, and prickly chapter three, the gooseberry patch, are all done. The editing and beautifying of these chapters, come borders, will come later.

So, the herb Garden so far…

Remember this?

Now I have this…

The main thing was to plant herbs I actually use alot rather than using the space on herbs I only use now and again. I also write up my own recipes so that has been another driving force for growing my own. I planted the herb border up twice actually, realising the first time I planted all the herbs separately and symmetrically so that the border looked like one of those spangly pansy borders in a seaside park, all rigidly planted in symmetrical patterns. Great fun in a seaside park, awful in a countryside cottage garden. So I took the herbs up and planted them again in what are supposed to be ‘drifts’ which just so happen still to look a bit seaside park on account of the herbs being bought new and and therefore being equal in size and stature. In time of course they will all grow to their various sizes and heights and hopefully this will make the border more interesting! It better had anyway.

NOTES ON PLANTING OUT: The herbs were dug in with a mixture of fresh compost and bonemeal (which the dog keeps licking… no I’m not joking) and where required gravel was also mixed in. Some herbs prefer good drainage so look out for that on the planting out instructions.

I also slipped some tulip bulbs in between the herbs which I had dug up from old plant pots which I needed freeing up for some other plants, so next spring, hopefully, they will pop up between the herbs providing a show of colour while herbs develop.

Notes on mint: plant mint in containers. If it is not contained it will dominate and overcome the other plants. 

I also planted up some pots for added interest which will help shield my eyes from the concrete border edging until I find a better solution for it. There is now a pot of wild strawberries and tomatoes, as well as the usual geraniums for bright summer colour.

One of the editing processes to come will involve blending the herb border into the rose hedge. From the patio, the herb border is seen first and is lower than the rose hedge behind (when they eventually get going that is, which as bare root roses might not be this summer…boo!). So they look very disconnected at the moment, even though they join to encircle the round patio. I need to blend them using one colour scheme threaded through both borders. I am considering using aliums for earlier flowering then verbena bonasarius for high summer through to autumn. These tall but slender plants will hopefully unify the borders and without blocking out the ‘main’ plants. I am thinking it’s not an especially imaginary solution so I will be teasing my mind for other more innovative ideas.

Whatever plants I end up choosing, however, I will limited the colour pallete range. So bluey/purple and or white maybe. But as I say, I’ll think about this in more detail and document what I decide upon in a later blog post.

You can see my original garden design here

Skip to The Gooseberry Patch blog here

See potting up a strawberry hanging basket here

UPDATE:

Skip to Spring and summer view.

Now …