April in the Garden
What we will be up to in your gardens this month:
Weeding, keep on top of weeds before they get too big.
Trimming edges, keeping flower bed edges neat
Pruning spring flowering shrubs such as Forsythia, Pyracanthus, Cistus, Deutzia, Hydrangeas, Buddlejas, Hibiscus, Spiraea japonica, Choysia, Lonicera Evergreen.
Make sure hedge lines are tidy and any sporadic growth is cut back
Watering dry parts of the garden and pots, especially in this hot dry weather we’ve ben having
Planting, if you have had beds and borders designed we will begin planting them out
Design Work
In the studio this month I worked on a cottage garden for a couple who live in a local village. The garden is wrapped by trees and sits within an angular, triangle shaped plot. The garden is currently bare, consisting of lawn, bare fence, gabions, paving slabs and a set of stairs up into the garden.
The brief was to create a cottage style garden that attracts and supports wildlife, could tolerate shade and was low maintenance with formal structure. I created a planting scheme that softened the harder edges of the garden, with frothy texture, winter flowering plants and trees with a long period of summer flowers. With this scheme, the garden will become a welcoming space, a place you look forward to opening the doors to and unwinding a picnic blanket on the lawn to watch the wildlife interact with the array of plants and flower forms.
While I worked in the studio creating this garden, I was continually visited by a little black and white bird, which was identified by my bird enthusiast friend as a long tailed tit fledging. Black and white with a long tail, it would periodically perch on the windowsill, cocking its head to peer in. It felt like a nod towards the work that I was doing, creating another garden nearby that supports and encourages creatures to share our spaces. I had never seen this bird in the garden before and it was exciting that a new bird felt safe and secure in our little garden.
On completing the design, I am so pleased that the client loved it and we are getting ready for the next steps of sourcing, ordering plants and arranging the planting out of the new garden.
