As this month is going to concentrate on the preparation and start of the build of the long border here on my Chalk Hillside, I shall start with some photos from a lovely arboretum visit on 14 March. For once this year it was a lovely sunny day and we hoped to see cherry blossom, and early Magnolias in flower. Around here the magnolias were only just beginning to show colour in their buds, and the cherries were not flowering at all. Less than 60 miles away, Magnolias were fully out: -
(Yes that’s a failed selfie with the Magnolia Soulangeana!)
And amazingly we had timed it exactly right to see the Cherry Blossom against blue sky! Firstly, the Yoshino Cherry (Prunus x yedoensis ‘Somei-Yoshino’), then the deeper pink Drooping Rosebud Cherry Prunus Itosakura ‘Pendula Rosea’: -
Do you see the Muscari, blue at the base, and the wonderful burnt orange of the Chaenomelese ‘Orange Storm’ bottom left? All buzzing with bees. Our neighbour’s Weeping Cherries didn’t start to come into flower until more than a week after that.
Back to our less salubrious surroundings - here, a year after the shots I showed you in February’s post, in June 2020, is a view of the space that was going to be the Long Border, very weedy/overgrown/covered in detritus, (the chalk strip being roughly where the back edge of the border would be): -
Having massively contoured the ground to make a flat patio and retaining gabion wall, I didn’t want to carry on removing what little topsoil we actually had on the chalk hillside to try and even out the humps and bumps over the area the new bed would be, we would make use of the downward slope of the bed in the planting. I hope this shot of himself mowing the area where the long border would be shows the reality of the slope: -
So, in October 2020 we hired a rotavator to break up the top growth on the area of the new border, and here I am digging grass roots etc out, and himself turning over the subsoil: -
We decided to “smooth” the gradient to make the slope not quite so enormous front to back - still there would obviously need to be something to retain the soil at the front, otherwise it would simply roll/wash down the slope. Here we are doing some contouring – you can see the state of the soil/subsoil/chalk!:-
As the ground was uneven across the length of the proposed bed, whatever we had at the front would need to accommodate different heights at times. The metal edging we had chosen for the fern bed would not be suitable, therefore. Here’s a shot of the fern bed looking back to the side of the steps, with the metal edging against the grass: -
I wanted to have metal edging at the “back” of the bed where it met the (eventually to be) paved path so that it matched this other side butting up to the fern bed, but it would only work at the back, not on the sides or front, so himself overruled me, and wanted wooden scaffolding boards which could be double banked or cut to height as the contours dictated. He also overruled me on the idea of actually laying the paving for this path before starting the long border, so the path remained weedy/grassy chalk for several years!)
As this month I’m trying to do a “reportage” style, and keep it chronological, in the October I also took delivery of 100 bare-root Wallflowers, (three different colours): -
They were lined out in the vegetable bed with the aim they would go into the Long Border as fillers at the front in the spring, and 100 Lavendula angustifolia ‘Hidcote’ plugs arrived too, and were crammed into spent mushroom pots until they could go into the new border as the “hedge” at the back – i.e. the side nearest the fern bed: -
The amount of excavating we had done to make the patio/gabions meant that over two thirds of the area the new bed would cover was bare chalk, and only the final few square feet had some soil/subsoil on them to mix in with what would have to be imported topsoil and soil improver. I ordered 11 tonnes of topsoil and soil improver hoping that this would be enough for the area. (I could have done with a couple of tonnes more….) It was delivered on 9 November 2020: -
I hope you are remembering that our garden is over 300ft long, and slopes by over 50ft within that…. but obviously the Long Border was only 200+ feet down from the front drive…..and we were in lots of lock downs then, so what else were we going to be doing with our time….
Anyway, we started with the wooden edging – here on 19th November 2020 we start with the back edge: -
The path between the fern bed and the back of the Long Border had been made level, so that WHEN it was paved, the paving would lie flat. Therefore, in some places the back board was above the ground level, and in other below – but it was level in itself. Next here is himself fitting in the far side edge, with the Bamboo bed behind it: -
You can see here how big the Bamboo Fargesii scabrida ‘Asian Wonder’ had already got, the hellebores I had bought and planted there temporarily (they were intended for the front of the Long Border eventually), and that the edging here was now two boards deep at least. By 22 November we had all the edging in – here to show you the bed in relation to the gabion wall and patio above too: -
As you may be able to tell from the following photo from the next day, the edging board at the nearest short end is only stood in to show you, as we needed to be able to roll wheelbarrows through this space to fill it up with soil/soil improver. This last picture has the position of the utility paths through the border shown on it (the planks laid across it), and of the three tripods that would be put in - the tripods of canes which you can hopefully see: -
This also shows you the distortion of perspective, as the paths are dividing the bed into three equal areas, with a tripod situated in the centre of each area. I had decided that I wanted a paving stone path (rather than stepping stones, or gravel/bark) from front to back of the border. I could not imagine how frustrating it would be to be working on the bed from the front or back and then have to walk all the way round the outside to get to the other side to carry on, I wanted to be able to walk front to back every 12-15 metres or so. In some places at the front, it would be very difficult to clamber onto the bed anyway as it was so high (the edging of the third nearest to the bamboo is over a foot high).
Next month I’ll show you the completed construction and talk about the planting. Let us finish with some more spring bulbs in the garden, taken on 1 April. First, Snakes Head Fritillaries (Fritillaria Meleagris) planted amongst the fern bed: -
And Narcissus ‘Minnow’: -
And to finish this rather lovely pot of “lily flowering” tulips from 3 April 2020 that I was sent as “free” bulbs with a plant order. Such lovely colour, but naturally, they did not come back the following year.
Sheila May
