A Journey Begins...

Because I'm a professional horticulturist people often assume that I must have a lovely garden at home. We've lived in our house for the last seventeen years and over time I've added lots of planting to our garden and rented additional space from a local land-owner to use as an allotment giving us a decent sized but still manageable space on the back of our 1950's semi.

Sounds idyllic right?  So why don't I love it?

Well in truth our garden like many others has evolved in the time we've lived here. We inherited a garden which had mostly been undeveloped by the previous owners and when our children were young we took the decision to maximise the lawn space, built a willow dome and installed a playhouse under an oak tree to give our children some natural outside play space. We also built a deck by our dining kitchen door to create level access to the outside from the house as a space for our young family to play out in from which we could still supervise from indoors if necessary and added fences around the perimeter of the garden to keep our little ones safe as they grew.

Unable to resist a bargain, giveaway or to be honest, anything stocked in your average garden centre, I've crammed plants in wherever I can around the edges with little thought or planning so the result is a garden which looks lovely to the untrained eye but from my point of view is just a bit bland.  A centrifuge of lawn with chaotic planting around the edge and no real structure or format.

Since Covid, a busy family life, transitioning from a teaching career that was taking all my energy to running my horticulture consultancy www.EuphorbiaGardens.co.uk, and a house extension have all impacted on my ability to spend the time I would like outside.  The garden has always been my sanctuary but suddenly I was beginning to resent spending my precious time out there and the more I neglected it the less time I wanted to spend. 

The extension we've had built has opened up new views of both the front and back gardens and we need to rethink the way we use the space because the house has new entry points. There are decisions to be made about what hard landscaping we need, what sort of materials to use and where we need paths to run between the house and the allotment.  We also need to consider practical things like where the bins will live now and whether to move the washing line to a sunnier spot.

The extension has changed the way we view the garden and created a new entrance at the back of the house.

All this change has energised my thinking.  Suddenly I've a reason to redesign the garden, removing the bits that don't work and finding new homes for some of the plants I've forced in over the years.  Our children are now teenagers and no longer want or need a play space so it feels like the time is right to develop the structure.  Since starting my consultancy business I also feel like I can now give myself permission to spend time in the garden.  I want to use it to test my design theories, play with colour, texture and materials and build my garden skills in order to make me a better consultant and while I'm doing that I will be recording my journey in this blog.