First glimpse of the new garden

As you can imagine, a combination of moving from Sheffield to Penarth, along with managing my health, has meant blogging has been low down on the list of things to do. I’m going to focus on short and sweet blogs for now.

And first up, photos of the new garden!

This is the front. The house to the left is my neighbour’s. Mine is currently just grass – a blank slate. It gets sun all year round and will be a ‘hot’ garden, as in predominantly hot colours, reds, yellows and oranges.

The front of a house is shown and you can see windows from two levels. In front is just grass, with a couple of potted plants next to the house wall. To the right and back is a neighbour's hours
The front garden from the footpath
A view of the front garden from the side. You can see the lawn, though it looks smaller than it is in reality, approx 7m x 12m. You can also see the street, other cars and houses.
The front garden from the side

This is a very basic sketch of the current layout and measurements, from which I’ll create a to scale layout and then design. I plan on putting in a good sized Acer griseum in the middle and the border with the footpath and the neighbours driveway will be a Sarcococca confusa hedge. The plants are on order!

A not-to-scale drawing in pencil on A3 graph paper. There are different shapes representing the grass area, driveway and house, with scribbled writing and measurements.
A very rough sketch of the layout of the front garden, with measurements

This is the back garden when we first moved in. Again, a blank slate. All the plants and items are mine; the previous owner did nothing with the space at all. First thing to go is that awful dark brown fence.

The back garden from a first floor window. It is surrounded by a dark brown fence, and there are lots of plants in pots in the top left corner, sitting on some dried out grass (it is the height of summer).
The back garden from a 1st level window, from July 2022

And yes, the fence is now a light green! This has already made a difference now that the garden gets less light during late autumn and winter. I’ve been photographing the same view weekly, so I can track how the light changes at different times. This is important and will help me decide where everything will go.

The back garden from a 1st floor window. The fence is now a light green and there are plants in pots scattered about on grass. Most of the garden is in light shade, but you can see sunlight on the right side fence.
The back garden mid-November 2022

Voilà! My to scale sketch of where I think different items will be placed in the garden. The sunniest part in winter is the bottom right-hand side, so that’s where the two vegetable borders will go.

A scaled drawing in pencil on A3 graph paper. There are different shapes representing either buildings or borders, with scribbled writing and measurements.
A sketch to scale, of the back garden

Yes, it’s includes a greenhouse. Also the top left corner, the darkest part of the garden, will be my partner’s new piano room.

As you can see, I’ve already got lots of ideas. I believe I’ve found a gardener to help me do a lot of the digging and planting, and with some plants arriving soon, I should have the first plants in the ground before the end of the year.

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