Hello Everyone. This is my first blog for T&M and I approached them because I want to try something new and grow something edible in my vastly overcrowded cottage garden.
We live in a 1920’s terrace house in North London and have a cottage garden front and back. We feel very fortunate to have a long front garden path and a back garden big enough to eat out in.
This is how it looked in 1988 when we moved in.
And this is how it looks now.
Here is a picture of the front
And here is the back
I fell in love with this style when I saw Geoff Hamilton on TV years ago building his Paradise Garden at Barnsdale. I was hooked. My style is to cram everything I like in to the borders and pots including scented shrubs, easy perennials, simple herbs, clematis and honeysuckle, Spring bulbs and autumn colour. Some of my favourites are hardy geraniums, pulmonaria, primroses, euphorbia of all kinds, heleniums and sedums.
Ideas for this year
So now my idea is to start small and grow something I can eat. After hours of browsing I’ve decided salad crops and maybe strawberries might be the best to start with. I don’t think I get enough sun for tomatoes and as you can see I have no greenhouse or cold frame.
Two problems spring to mind. As the borders become so abundant in summer any crops in the beds would surely get smothered. Secondly I do have to contend with rats, squirrels and pigeons running around the beds and pots. I don’t have a problem with slugs as I avoid growing anything they like to eat but if I want to grow salad crops how will I manage?
I intend to get all the advice I can from T&M and elsewhere and in my next blog I shall report my progress.
Until then, lots of research and planning awaits me but it will be worth it in the end!
Julie
I love the cottage garden style – it affects me emotionally where other styles I can admire and enjoy but they might not move me. Now in my sixties I only started gardening at 40 when we moved to our house with a front and back garden. To see what it looked like then and now you might like to look at my blog at www.Londoncottagegarden.com
We look out on it every single day so this garden needs to lift our hearts all year round. It teeters between abundant fabulousness and chaos. My gardening efforts aim to keep that balance but I’m against trying to control too much. I control other areas of my life but the garden gives me a place to let go and leave things alone to do their own thing.
My inspirations began with Geoff Hamilton on TV as well as Dan Pearson on TV and Anna Pavord in print. I learned some basics by trial and error and by working alongside professional gardeners who helped me. I found my style by visiting other gardens both grand ones around the south of England and local NGS ones here in North London who might share the same soil and conditions.
I look forward to sharing with you our garden through the year.
Hi Julie,
What a lovely garden, and I love your gardening philosophy it’s very similar to mine.
You may be able to have ago at growing carrots, as they are quite thin and tall plants they would work well in your mixed borders.
Good luck (not that you need it) with the lettuce and strawberry growing they should grow easily and quickly.
Kind regards,
Amanda
Thankyou so much Amanda. Carrots sound a good idea as the foliage is so pretty. I haven’t done anything about growing edibles yet – slightly frozen in indecision as to what and how. Hoping I will leap into action in a few weeks’ time. Best wishes, Julie
This looks wonderful what you have achieved , great policy re slugs ( poison slugs = birds etc eat slugs , birds / hedgehogs / toads die) go round the problem. The change to your home is amazing. Keep it up
Hi Julie,
I love the way you have everything all crammed in as you say. I think it takes a certain creativity to do this and some bohemian sense of style. I would like to do this in my standard square shaped garden. I have broken up the space with some rose hedging.
I will look forward to maybe some advice on growing clematis. It sounds like you have some very interesting plants and I look forward to following your progress with the salad crops. I am planning on sowing some lettuce and have ordered the T&M bare root strawberry collection. I have dreadful slugs here so have bought one of the small Poppy trugs and a little green house cover. You have a beautiful garden! I lived for a time in Ealing and I could not get over the size of the gardens.
Kate
Hi there Julie, you must be relatively close to me as I too live in North London, N2 in fact. Love what you have done and look forward to reading about your progress. Love Caroline