The planting in this tiny garden is looking great

This north facing back garden is a small square which was an unloved mess of gravel and horsetail before tenants moved out and the owner moved back in.

Now, the paving and gravel have been replaced.  I have  set the beds and paving stones on a 45 degree angle from the back of the house. This helps to make the garden seem wider and more spacious.   It has given plenty of space for planting and there should be something of interest through much of the year.  As it is a fairly shady garden, I’ve used a colour palette of pale yellow and white flowers with plenty of texture in the foliage.  White climbing roses and clematis will provide scent and coverage on the trellis panels.

New shade tolerant plants are put into specially prepared beds with good quality topsoil.  Some are raised and some at ground level to provide interest and trellis panels forming a rib effect come out into the garden for height and also to hide the dustbins.  1.8m high trellis panels line the garden as well to provide plenty of space to train climbing plants. There will be benches opposite each other to catch morning and afternoon sun.

I have taken some pictures of the garden a year into its new life and am really pleased with how well the plants have established.  The diagonally placed low trellis panels are doing a good job of making the space more interesting and the soft colour palette of white and yellow flowers with all the textures of greenery make for a very restful space.  As with a lot of pernicious weeds, it seems the marestail hasn’t been totally eradicated but it actually lends a bit of texture to the planting scheme and I don’t think it matters.

This photo shows how it looked before any work started.

 

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