Index:
- Page 1 The proposed site 2012, planted 2013 (this page)
- Photo Gallery
There is an L-shaped spinney of trees along the North West edge of the garden. In Spring 2011 I took some Snowdrops from my Mother’s garden and planted them there, and now in the Spring of 2012 I have decided that I should try to naturalise more bulbs and create a “Woodland Walk” to have The Joy of Spring to look forward to each year. The main part of the garden has nothing “on show” during the Winter, as being on heavy clay it is squelchy to walk round, and thus not very inviting. I’m not sure that the N.W. corner of the garden is any better as a destination for a winter walk! but it has the benefit of a copse of trees.
I bought about 1,000 snowdrops to be planted “in the green” in early March, I used my blub planter (the sort that you stamp on, like a spade, rather than a pathetically small hand one) and jumped on it, like a Pogo Stick, to make planting holes to a random pattern – after the first couple the cores came out of the top of the bulb planter’s barrel and I just let them fall where they chose, and then I put three Snowdrops in each hole, rubbed a little of the soil off the bottom of a core so that the bulb’s roots were nicely covered, and in contact with the soil, then put the core back.
I laid out an “imaginary” winding path, with a length of hose, to try to make the walk more interesting than the dead straight line which marks the edge of the garden, and planted the snowdrops to that line, and I’ll plant Daffodils to demarcate the other side in the Autumn.
I found some Hellebores in the discount-rack at the local garden centre. They never seem to look after any plants there particularly well, and after they become bedraggled there are often savings to be made, the trick is knowing that they will survive with a bit of TLC. The leaves on these looked brown and horrid, but there were strong buds coming, and I suspect the brown leaves are just last years, now past their best. So I bought 32 of them for a little over a £1 each – bonus! and their two remaining Coum Cyclamen, pity there were no more.
This is a plan of the N.W. corner of the garden to try to provide some perspective. The plan is orientated North-South, so the “E” is really at the North East end of the path and “W” at the South West end, and similarly for the path marked “N” to “S”.
(“J” is the Jungle / Exotic garden currently being planted, and “P” the ponds)
Woodland Walk Key
Some pictures walking from E to W, the trees are mostly Sycamore I think:
Woodland Walk – walking from “E” to “W”
Woodland Walk – Half way from “E” to “W”
note the eyesore pile of broken concrete, removed from the ponds we filled in years ago, which I hope we will crush and use as aggregate … one day …
A picture showing (sort of!) the newly planted Snowdrops with foliage poking out of their planting holes:
Snowdrops Planted
Once you get to “M”, and are about to go around the left bend at the end, looking towards “A” is an area under some Silver Birch when I would like to plant Bluebells. I sowed some seed a couple of years ago, but there is no sign of any, but I do get 20-or-so self-sown Hollies every year, so the birds must enjoy having a sing-song sitting in the Silver Birch trees here.
and then walking to “A” and looking back, in the opposite direction, towards “M”:
Continuing my walk towards “S” I realised that there is an opportunity for a vista (Yellow line on the plan) from A to V. The vegetable patch is at “V” and a central path runs West-to-East through the middle. I would like to put a hedge around the vegetable patch, as a wind break (Well … actually … if money were no object I would make it into a walled-garden …) and having an arch, in the hedge, at each side would create a nice vista.
Vegetable Patch Vista – from “A” to “V”
then continuing towards “S” there is another small spinney (Scots Pines) where I planted the Snowdrops from my Mother (this is the view from “B” rather than from “A”)
Existing Snowdrops – Looking from “B” to “S”
and then looking back from “S” to “B”
Existing Snowdrops – Looking from “S” to “B”
Woodland Walk – First season after planting – Mar 2013
K's Garden 