When we arrived at this garden, we found two patchy, weedy borders either side of the front door. We decided to remedy this with a new pathway, Everedge steel edging with new planting design and mulch. First off, we got to work removing the heavy clay soil, that had been compacted by builders when the house was built.
This week, we’ve experienced high temperatures for this time of the year in the UK, with May day being the hottest on record. As you can imagine it was hot work, but our customer was very lovely; bringing us ice creams and iced coffee!
We removed the original paving from the pathway, and added yellow limestone instead. George removed some of the top level of the original base so that when the new paving was laid it would be the correct height with the front door, sloping down to the road level.
We had a skip delivered by Earthworks UK, which was very handy, so that we could transfer the heavy soil that we were removing straight into it.
It was hard work in the baking sun, but we felt a good sense of achievement once we had dug down to the correct level; removing lots of poor quality soil.
George used the disc cutter to cut the paving to the desired size. The original path was wider than the door, which looked a bit odd. We have constructed a new pathway which is the same width as the door, making it look much slicker.
We dug down to a good depth so that we could add good quality soil, plants and mulch in both borders.
Once the path was laid and the majority of the soil had been dug up, George and Flo screwed two new pieces of trellis to the house; one each side of the front door. To these we planted and tied David Austin climbing roses, which our customer already had growing in pots in their back garden.
Whilst they were attaching the trellis, I installed the Everedge edging around the walls of the house and pathway. We included a Cotswold Cream gravel zone between the house and border to create better drainage. Earthworks UK then delivered a few tonnes of grade A soil, so that the garden could begin to take shape. Thankfully this front garden has great access, so the driver was able to use a grab to place large piles in each border.
We brought in plants for our new planting scheme. Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ along the wall on each side, under the windows, with lavender interspersed with Gaura around the curved perimeters, and Salvia ‘Hot Lips’ in the middle of the borders. These will fill the space, give colour, interest and a habitat for wildlife. Our customer is going to plant Allium bulbs in the autumn, which will pop up higher than these plants, and will look fantastic.
There were quite a few drain covers in this front garden, which at the beginning were all raised above the soil level and looked very strange. We have made these garden borders the same height as the drains so that they now blend in, but can still be accessed if needed.
On the last day of this project we mulched the newly planted borders with a good quality mulch. It is so important to add a thickly mulched layer to your garden. It will retain moisture in the soil for plants, suppresses the weeds and improves the soil as it degrades. As it was so hot whilst we were creating this garden, we made sure to water the plants twice on the day of planting and thereafter to make sure they weren’t too stressed.
We are really pleased with the outcome of this lovely garden design. It is easy to manage and maintain and will give the couple who live here a lot of joy. Come back again next time to see what we’re up to…
