A rear garden - north facing, was required to be transformed from a bare lawn area in to a garden that had the traditional 'cottage' appeal and which would attract a great deal of wildlife - particularly pollinating insects - especially wild bees, whilst maintaining privacy from surrounding houses.
The exisitng structure planting of coniferous trees and evergreen large privet was retained and crownlifted to maintain immediate privacy screening, as this could take many years otherwise to establish, even though it meant it would present even greater challanges to the soil structure and create hard to cultivate dry areas
The soil was barely 8 inches deep over soilid orange boulder clay - which is typical for this region, and generates a mainly neutral to slightly acidid pH balance.
Sightlines acrosss the area were examined as the client wished to have as much open viewable space as possible (and alsoaintain a smaller lawn area) whilst also wishing to have variation and pockets of differing space to maintain interest .
Edged pathways and a set of access steps and a retaining dwarf wall was constructed to allow for the importation of several inches of deeper growing medium to be retained and then mixture of herbaceous and woodland planting was established over several growing seasons with the variation in heights and changing flowring timings also planned.
Many plants have been chosen to give a white colour palette to lift the darkness created by the retained structure planting of the evergreen large shrubs and trees, the first of which was fast establishing ground cover planting of hardy Geranium species which has also been a highly successful attrctor of the bees and pollinating insects the client required.
Lunaria annua Honesty) has also been seeded across the area which will provide winter interest with the dried seed pods - again with the white colour pallete - and is sheltered enough by the structure planting to survive long in to the harshest periods of the season.
Beneath the coniferous trees only ornamental grasses could be guarenteed success in the shortest possible timeframe to quickly establish as structural elements, and the 'pheasnt grass' Anemanthele lessoniana was chosen for this purpose., whilst as selction of Ferns and some Corkscrew hazels (Coryllus avellana 'contorta') have been established benath the crown raised privets ( Lugustrum ovalifolium) Several 'hibernacula for over wintering insects have also been placed here.
Overall to establish a herbaceous 'cottage' garden is not an overnight undertaking. Due to both the nature of the plants - the potential for over winter failings with early Spring frosts or torrential rainfall leading to waterlogged ground rotting the plants - the aforementioned clay soil in this region creates very testing drainage problems - another reason the exisitng structure planting was left in situ and not removed immediately in favour of more benign selections until the garden has fully established, as these evergreen species do take up a great deal of surface water in a wet climate region of the nation and prevent the need to place drains within the design.
Working well with what you have and knowledge of soil conditions, orientation of site and knowing what responses certain plants will take as opposed to others, may temper some designers, or perhaps lead them to produce extravagant plans that please the client but will infact fail within a year or so, but at +landscape we know what is possible and site specific and we know what will work to best effect in the most responsive time to the individual environment. Things can be added and changed as the garden develops, but to establish strong lasting results in the shortest possible time is what many clients today are hoping for - and we can deliver that.
