During this year I have been sporadically busy with some changes to the layout of my suburban plot, my initial musings are detailed here. At the start of the year the garden looked like this:
Since then I have changed the line of the path, built the seating area and planted up the new borders surrounding it.
From above the garden now looks like this.
The next job has been to extend a couple of borders near the patio. Some of this is in line with my quick back of an envelope design, and some is a little different. I decided not to dig up the whole of the lawn on the left side of the path. I think that is a little extreme at this point, and I worry it will make the garden lop-sided. I wouldn’t rule it out in the future, no doubt I’ll be looking for more planting space next year!
I used the garden hose to get the line of the new border and then set to with the edging knife. I dug the line first, using the flat blade of a mattock. You can see that part in the bottom right corner of the above photo. The rest of the turf next, again using the mattock to hack it away from the soil. This particular area is quite compacted and has a bit of building debris. I’ve loosened the soil with a pickaxe and removed the more obvious lumps of brick. Two barrows of home made compost have gone in, given a light forking in. That’s one side done.
The same needs doing on other side. I just have to decide how much of the lawn to take. My thought is to extend the patio border a little so that it follow the inside of the path for a couple of metres. This would make a sort of U-shape, or a backwards J perhaps. The long side is the sunny border on the left, the base is the border on the bottom left of the picture. The new part would then be the short side of the J, extending the border into towards the path. The yellow line in the photo below is something like what I’m after.
I followed the same procedure on this side, removing the turf, giving it a seeing to with the pick axe, then forking in a load of compost. I’m not ready to plant up yet, so I’ve covered with some weed membrane to stop the cats using it as a lav.
I have a couple of minor modifications that I might still do this year. The line of the border on the left of the garden (looking down from above) is a little straight, a little inorganic. I might make the line of the edge a more graceful curve through the corner, so it is a little less right-angled, same deal at the end nearest the patio. Aside from that, I think that is the end of this year’s tinkering with the garden layout. Next year, I still have half a mind still to add a rose arch along the path, and possibly another border on the right side of the path where it curves towards the slide. I also think I could carve out a bit more planting space on the right of the path as it disappears off down the side of the house. And don’t get me started with what I might do when the climbing frame finally goes…
I’ll be back at some point with an update on the planting for the extended borders.
The Propagator 
All that flat space must be nice I have plenty of space, but none is flat. The flat space at work is . . . at work. I miss my flat garden in town. It had great soil too.
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Yeah flat but small. I would swap for bigger and less flat.
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There are ways of using sloped space of course. However, there is such a thing as too steep. There was a 400 foot elevation difference from the bottom to the top of the ten acre parcel. There is about as much elevation difference at the farm, but it is spread out over a much larger area, with two nice plateaus.
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I think I need you to be brave for me to remove the straight edges in my own garden because you’ve done an amazing job in your own.
My problem is age, an injured husband and the hardest/heaviest clay soil you can imagine. My idea is to divide the huge rectangle into rooms using living dividers as it may be the easiest option.
In the meantime – I shall sit back and watch your landscaping with interest and admiration.
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I’ll pop over! Luckily for me I have both easy soil and relative youth on my side. Your idea of breaking up the space with living dividers is a good one. I had a similar thought but i think the garden is a bit small. I’d have garden cupboards not garden rooms!
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The new layout has made the garden looks SO much bigger and the planned beds will add additional interest. Have you considered using a mirror at the far end of the garden as a focal point and to add depth?
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No, haven’t considered that! not sure where I’d put one. The trellis on both sides is pretty well populated with climbers and wisteria.
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Looking GREAT!
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Thank you! It’s coming along.
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It’s quite gratifying watching the changes 🙂 I’m doing the same at my allotment as we speak.
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Oh good. Yes it’s fun to make changes. Keeps me off the streets.
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Here goes! The benefit of having grassed paths between the borders is that you still keep some green on that side to balance the lawn on the right of the path AND you can reach the borders easily to plant / weed etc.
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Ooh how did you do that?! I didn’t know you could attach a photo to a comment!
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I loaded the edited photo into my own media library and then just copied the URL into the comment. Hope you don’t mind me playing with your plot, I am bored as it has been raining all day 😀 (And thinking whether I can face removing the rest of my own lawn…)
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BTW I like your plant labels. I see you have used blackboard paint, but what to you use to make the label itself?
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Just a bit of 3×2 or a pallet rail, cut into suitable size pieces using a circular saw.
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Ah, boys tools. I do have a hand saw!!
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I think if i had to do by hand I wouldnt bother.
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Looking good Prop. I really like your curved path (I went back to the first post to refresh myself about the proposed changes) it looks so much nicer than the original straight one. I did wonder about the ‘shortcut’ that people commented about but I see you have placed the slide in the way. Very clever. And the ‘Eye of Sauron has worked nicely too. A lovely secluded spot.
I think that you could put another bed on the left hand side of the path (you were originally going to remove all the grass on that side) in the centre, maybe a triangular wedged shape with the narrow point fitting into the stepping stones. This would create two grassy paths between the borders (make sure they are wide enough for the mower so as not to cause aggravation!) and maybe have an Obelisk in this bed to grow a clematis over or sweet-peas which would semi divide the seating area from the rest of the garden.
I would also soften the edge of the new bed on the left and curve it into the corner. I will see if I can copy your photo and show you what I mean by editing it.
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Thanks for your thoughts on the layout. The lawn on the left hand side has to accommodate the hammock in the summer, i dont think there would be room for it if I did as you suggest. Thanks though,i like your the idea.
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Ah, well, you didn’t mention the HAMMOCK 😀
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I did not. I’ll take a photo from above with it in place at some point.
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😀
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