Member Gardens - New Garden Transformation

As we can't get out and visit other people's gardens at the moment, we're hoping that some of our members will share how their gardens grow over the coming months. If you'd like to share some of your garden pictures and stories, please send to lizstewart2014@gmail.com

To get the ball rolling, one of our members has shared her garden journey, having moved into a brand new house just last year, creating a brand new garden on what had been a building site just months previously. She writes:

My priority was a greenhouse. This is now full of seedlings, a large bowl of rocket and lettuce and some tender plants.

Then I had all the grass stripped off to reveal solid clay, much of which was sodden and unworkable. There is a drainage problem across the site so I had to think about what could tolerate wet feet.

I hired a local landscaper to set out beds. He added 4 tonnes of John Innes compost, manure, mushroom compost, 6 tonnes of slate clippings (I don't ever want to cut grass again) and lots of hard work. Then I added all the plants that had been 'on holiday' in pots for months plus new additions and waited to see what survived the winter.

I've since added yet more compost, gravel, sand and mushroom compost and dug some new beds into the gravel. To my surprise, I only lost one plant over winter; so many are now in the wrong place and will have to be moved over time. I never knew artichokes liked clay! All my little rock plants and now safely in large pots and I've added fruit, some climbers and recently two Rambling Rosies and a posh-sounding Ghislaine de Felingonde. This is the 'still in progress' garden today, six months after I started.

Thank you to friends who have contributed plants.

Thank you so much for the pictures and article!