Well, the landscapers have been on site for just over a month now, and the bones of the garden are beginning to take shape. It has certainly come a long way already from the bare site studded with tree stumps and graced by the ruin of the old tea garden, being quietly consumed by a rampant wisteria! The tea room building is gone now, and on the site an area has been cleared and prepared for the barn that will be built there. Some of the paths and areas of hard standing are already formed, and the flowing curves that the borders will take are becoming apparent.
One of the more decorative elements of the garden has recently gone in – the willow spiling which is to form one of two raised ridges in the meadow areas. I did not know what spiling was until recently – if you imagine it as willow hurdles woven in situ, to follow the curves of the land. Usually it is installed to prevent erosion or support banks. Our contractors wove a rather lovely mixture of colours into the spiling. It will shortly strike, forming a living structure.
The new team of volunteers have been getting stuck in at the garden – before the landscapers arrived we spent a pleasant Saturday morning transplanting snowdrops out of the way of the landscapers. Since then, we have been installing rabbit fencing…. I have to confess to being a little worried about these pesky blighters. I have been burnt by them before in a private garden, despite planting exclusively from the RHS’ list of ‘Rabbit resistant plants’. Apparently no one had told the rabbits the plants were rabbit resistant!
Our next tasks are to put in various wooden fences – to screen the bungalow which is not to be demolished just yet, and the western boundary of the public part of the garden. We are also cutting timber for the boardwalk and platform which will run across the bog garden at the far end of the garden. We are quite proud that the timber for the boardwalk has all come out of our own woods!
The garden is on track to open in May – come and see it in the early stages, then you can enjoy it as it develops….