Posts Tagged ‘cottage style planting’

I popped back to see one of my Leatherhead projects last week.  I was commissioned earlier in the year to help my client to introduce some planting beds to her new garden.  It was a brand new house when she moved in so other than a terrace and lawn, there wasn’t much else there.

The planting needs some time to fill out, but in just one month it’s already looking more like a garden.  My client wanted a cottagey feel to the garden so there are roses, penstemon, anthemis and nepeta along with verbena bonariensis, clematis and anemone.

Originally along the back fence there was a row of cypress trees which the builder had planted – this is how it looked before…

Some of them were dying so we made the decision to take them out and my client wanted to replant with a photinia hedge which will eventually act as a backdrop to the other planting.

At the far end of the garden are several yew trees which are covered by a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) and this means that they can’t be removed. It’s very difficult to grow things under yew because the light is low and they have a high sap content.

When I first visited the garden, the beds at the front of the house were over planted with robust shrubs like photinia, skimmia, laurel and viburnum tinus so we have moved some of these to the area under the yew trees.  They look healthy enough so far so fingers crossed they continue to grow.

The only thing left to plant now are the spring bulbs which I’ll pop back to plant in a few weeks time.  I’m looking forward to seeing the garden next summer when the planting’s had some more time to fill out.