I think I now have a working plan for the middle part of the garden. To start with I spent a good deal of Saturday measuring the plot and making a plan of what I intend to keep.

You would think that this was easy- a simple case of measuring what was where in relation to the boundaries. But OH what a boring headache it was! It had all the aspects of a job that I hate; I had to be careful and accurate, while repeating the same actions over and again, remembering numbers and writing them down. Then when I got to drawing it out there were the inevitable absent measurements or ones that had to be wrong and had to be repeated. Plus it was bitterly cold and snowed on and off for most of the time. BUT I was determined! I know that if I want to think radically I have to make a plan and give free reign to my ideas because if I simply start from what is there I will be too guided by what is already on the ground.

So this is the plan that I produced, featuring the pergola/wisteria walkway, two large pine trees that I intend to keep and a couple of birch trees.

The top of the plan faces west and south is on the left hand side.

My first idea was to do something formal and geometric as a sort of counterpoint to the rest of the garden that is informal and ‘organic’. I had an idea of two paths at right angles to one another, the first following the line of the existing path through the pergola, forming quadrants that I would plant in tidy fashion. The trouble is when I drew it it looked all squew-whiff on account of how the actual pergola is not symmetrical to anything else. So the effect would have been ‘off’ .

I then thought about what I wanted from the garden. The key features would be;

• private spaces to sit ( meditate)
• sheltered from the wind that comes up the garden from the west
• many shrubs, with ground cover for minimal upkeep
• white flowers and scent; the white wisteria at the bottom left of the plot has a wonderful scent and I want to add Daphne and winter box
• a feeling of ‘peace’ and ‘seclusion’ so that it is the ‘quietest ‘ part of the garden

I also thought of my visit to the Isabella Plantation in Richmond park and how I had enjoyed the path winding through the shrubs for it’s feeling of peace and seclusion and constant changes of scene.

So, the obvious thing then was to add a winding path rather than a straight one. The path can wind through the garden between the uprights of the pergola and I can break up the form of the pergola with shrubs, both deciduous and evergreen. There would then be small areas, even cubicles in the pergola ‘bays’, where you could add a bench. So here is the shape so far (apologies for the blurry bottom!).

All I need now is a planting plan for the shrubs that I already have and a list of what I want to buy. I am keen on ferns under the fir trees and I already have a Daphne, Philadelphus, Box and Hebe- all with white flowers. My ‘man’ Steve comes next Sunday to clear the area, taking up the old railway sleepers that are there and the scrubby undergrowth. With a blank canvas I can start setting out the path and then after that start planting.

Today I also spent some time cutting back overgrown shrubs in the middle of the garden. As with so much here, the plants are OK but are terribly over-grown so that the shrubs are long and rangy and take over the space and are pretty formless too. My aim, as with the fruit trees is to work through the garden pruning and shaping so that I end up with plants that have form and structure and healthy growth.

Yesterday Steve and Lucas did a fabulous job of getting rid of the ugly dead trees ( where the thuja hedge had died)  and turning them into a wonderful pile of logs.

The space looks so much better already now that we can see the elder, hawthorn and hazels that the county council planted by the busway. It’s interesting how your eye is always drawn to the largest visual elements and as these were the dead trees it was these that I saw. I plan to fill this area with more trees and shrubs to make the boundary more interesting than the straight-line that it currently is. I would like something a bit more undulating and curved so that the garden feels a bit less like a long corridor. This will mean more planting that goes across the garden, if not all the way then at least coming in in curved arcs rather than simply following the boundary.

Steve and Lucas also removed two wild cherry trees that were shading the wisteria pergola. Even in the winter you can tell that there will be so much more light in this area with them gone. Steve has been persuaded to come back a week on Sunday to clear the area under and around the pergola ready for my more formal garden. Better get planning…

The thing about having such a large garden is that there is so much space to be filled with plants and so much room for a variety of ideas. In my acre I can make many different gardens and there is room for as many plants as I like. In my previous garden the boundaries of space helped me to be a better editor; there was only really room for my favourites and only room for a few garden design ideas. As my Dad used to say it is the constraints that create good designs as it is the ways in which you work within the limitations that you have that give your creativity room to shine.

The luxury of a really big garden turns out to be something of a hindrance to good design. I have as many ideas in one day as I have space to realise the ideas and of course my main constraints are now time and money, and even these are only really constraints regarding time and money in the present- we will be here ( we hope) for a very long time so we have years and years of time. The trouble is what to do NOW, I have the long term in my mind’s eye but the ideas feel so big and I don’t really know where to start.

So what I find myself doing is collecting ideas and collecting plants with only a vague idea of what to do next. I know that I need to clear more ground and create the canvas for the development of the ideas , but which land to clear and indeed where should I start?

The plants are also starting to ‘back up’, I am buying bargains and also potting up and transplanting self seeded shrubs and perennials to fill the spaces that one day will be created and soon I will run out of space in what was my vegetable garden and I will run out of pots. I find myself reluctant to plant many of these shrubs in the ground in case they end up in the ‘wrong place’ and are too difficult to move.  I seem to do one of two things; clear away plants that I don’t want to create spaces and gather plants in other spaces to be transplanted later. What I need to do is to fix on a plan and stick to it…. hmmmmmm.

Plants collected

Box –hardwood cuttings have created 7 miniature box shrubs

Philadelphus Virginal–  being sold for £2 a plant in Tesco- not to be resisted

Deutzia Scabra- another plant for £2 at Tesco

Hebe– white flowered and evergreen

Daphne aureomarginata- a bargain at my local nursery

Hazel– self seeded in the garden and ready for my wildlife hedge

Bamboo- Naughtily smuggled back from France where it was spreading near the garden in Brittany.

Ideas collected 

A wildlife hedge ( double thickness at least) where the ‘rabbit proof fence’ currently is, dividing the top garden from the lower garden where the cabin will be.

A ‘secret’ garden in the middle garden around the pergola. I’m thinking of a secluded garden with white flowering shrubs and ground cover to be a place for meditation and privacy. My current ideas are to create two paths in a cross ( one under the wisteria pergola and the other at right angles). Then have quadrants with shrubs and ground cover. Perhaps ferns, white flowered perennials. At the centre of the cross a water feature and places to sit. Scented flowers and year round interest. Oh, and lots of birch trees perhaps for very dappled shade and white trunks in winter.

7 varieties of plants only in any one area which was what Monty Don said on a programme once and makes perfect sense and would get away from my currently ‘dotty’ style of planting. The trouble is this needs a plan and goes against my natural plant collecting instincts ….perhaps just a simpler palette would make up for breaking this rule.

A huge wildlife pond/lake to be seen from the house just beyond the lawn and perennial beds. To link with the local watery landscapes and provide visual interest. It needs to be big and bold and not too high maintenance.

The orchard underplanted as a separate place my ideal is the orchard as a space buzzing with bees and with a variety of soft fruits as well as the tree fruits. To achieve this I will need to get it fenced off to stop the rabbits and deer from eating everything. Rustic fencing with raspberries and blackberries as the boundary.

This is of course not the definitive list or a set of definitive ideas. I have to trust in the process I think and do a little bit at a time. This is how the garden changes, it feels incremental but over time big changes happen- like bringing up children ( apt on this Mothering Sunday)! Which in a sense if one of the reasons for this blog. I look back at the early photos of some areas of the garden that I took before we even moved here and so much has changed even though at the time the changes looked small on the weekends when they were effected.

Last weekend I was inspired by a programme by Chris Packham called “The British  Garden: Life and Death on your Lawn”. Ok so a silly sensationalist title ( why do they do this?) for what turned out to be a rather interesting programme about the sheer number and variety of wildlife in a group of British suburban gardens in Hertfordshire.

The gardens were followed through the year, illustrating the changing seasons and highlighting key garden activity. It reminded me why I always loved natural history, from primary school nature tables through to my A level Biology field trip. The idea that all this activity and life is going on literally under our feet and all around us is both inspiring and magical to me.

The interesting conclusion of the programme was a count of the variety of wildlife in each garden, from the most manicured to the most over-grown and ‘wild’ and guess what? The garden with the biggest number and variety of wildlife was not the ‘wild’ garden as predicted but the ‘casually cultivated’ garden with fruit trees and areas of flower beds and more neglected areas where wild plants had invaded. They concluded that it was the variety of habitats, and especially the fact that there was something in flower pretty much throughout the year, that made all the difference.

I am inspired! the advice was to provide a variety of habitats with fruit trees, a pond flowers and wild areas. This is not going to be difficult for me to replicate. I am in the process of increasing the variety of ‘types’ of garden from the completely wild woodland at the end to the ‘cottage garden’, the ‘orchard’, the ‘water garden’ and a more secluded meditation garden in the middle with plenty of scented flowering shrubs and ferny ground cover. My aim in the garden is to have something flowering at all times of the year and of course in the end I want to have bees. So exciting!

In keeping with my ideas about making a garden that works with, rather than against, nature I have been thinking about local conditions and also about what grows in this area.  We live on the Fenland Edge which means that we are not as wet as the fens, however the low, flat, land is very prone to flooding. Currently the garden is waterlogged on account of the nature of the soil ( clay) and the very high water table. It doesn’t take much to make the grass (more moss than grass) spongy, in the bottom half of the garden especially, and I am concerned about my recently planted quince tree in particular that is currently standing in very wet ground.

There is a section of the evergreen hedge closest to the Busway that is dead and I presume this may be due to the earthworks as it was built and also the ongoing run off from the busway itself that pools at the lowest point on the edge of the garden.

In a couple of weeks time Steve is coming to cut these down and turn them into logs for our stove, getting rid of a rather  nasty eye sore, but what ( if anything) to put in their place? Steve suggested willow and helpfully remarked that I could go and fetch some willow withies from the local surroundings and they would ‘strike’ easily making useful plants for the area.

A fine idea, not only plants for free, but plants that will enjoy the wet conditions. I could even coppice them for willow withies to make plant supports, not to mention harvest young branches to make screens and even possibly a ‘fedge’.

So today me and Lois went to the far side of the busway where there is a pond and a couple of old willow trees. I cut an armful of branches and have planted 21 stems in the vegetable garden to see how they go. I have included stems of varying lengths and sizes as an experiment, but if they perform as we expect I should be the proud owner of at least a dozen young trees by the summer, ready for planting in the autumn perhaps.

I was feeling so smug and proud of myself for getting ahead and sowing half-hardy annuals in the greenhouse in the autumn. A couple of weeks ago I cleaned the greenhouse glass and tidied and it was a picture of  organisation and productivity. I felt like one of those keen gardeners in the magazines who has everything organised and under-control . Go me- I am a serious gardener at last!

That was on the 17th February. Look, even salad greens to enjoy. I thought Spring was around the corner and I was ahead of the game.

So pride comes before a fall and if gardening teaches you one thing it is that we are not in control of nature- we are at it’s mercy. This was the situation yesterday…

The plants were hit by the freezing conditions. For days the temperature did not rise above freezing . My carefully tended plants suddenly looked very sad as they flopped and collapsed. The salad leaves were limp and looking far from appetising.

Hopefully today’s thaw will be soon enough to allow them to bounce back. I will also get onto some more sowing, although some of the seedlings that I raised in my propagator are looking very sick and etiolated and were probably sown too soon. I should have really waited a bit.

So this is the thing really, you never know whether ‘getting ahead’ is worth the effort or whether your efforts will bear fruit. Gardening is not the sort of linear, logical activity where cause and effect follow on neatly from one another. More effort doesn’t always lead to more outcome and less effort is not always less rewarded. So one has to enjoy the process otherwise there is much potential for frustration and disappointment, as in the Buddhist idea to ‘act wholeheartedly,  but let go of the outcome’, it’s a lesson in humility as well as creativity. I can have all sorts of big ideas about how I want the garden to be and some of those will come through and work out and some of them won’t but I can still enjoy the process and delight in what I have created and nurtured. A constant lesson in ‘letting go’.

Update

This morning all is fine- phew! No apparent losses and the plants are gradually picking up. I shall water them tomorrow before we go away and hopefully they will be back on course. The lesson in ‘letting go’ has been postponed.

So, it was very cold and while there was less snow here than in some places, the garden had a good covering. Yesterday there was about 2 inches in the field area beyond the chestnut tree. It was really quite beautiful in the hazy grey light.

Walking in the snow in the garden also reminds me of the animals that share this space. There were rabbit tracks all over the garden, criss-crossing and even running in circles. Although I think this year, due to the cold, there were fewer tracks than in previous years.

As well as the rabbits there were two fox tracks in the middle of the garden and badger tracks down in the woods. The foxes appear to travel fast across the garden with foot prints at some distance from one another, while the badgers ‘potter around’ in the orchard.

I was tickled to see that the rabbits and badger use the path we cleared through the woods; all very civilised!

Snow days in the garden meant that there was no gardening to do at the weekend forcing me to do the indoor jobs like mending that I usually leave in favour of being outside. Now it is thawing I feel the urge to be outside again but after a lull in activity I am not sure where to start again. There is so much to do and with Spring on it’s way there is a growing sense of urgency that I am trying to stave off in my new attitude of approaching the garden as a ‘meditation’ rather than a ‘to do list’. I’m not really sure how to be more measured when it comes to Spring, as I usually get such a surge of energy that it almost feels like mania. However, for the time being the slushy snowy ground and the cold temperatures are keeping me inside.