Tuesday 24 April 2007

Enter the garden




Let us enter through the back gate, the one you have to drive through.
On the left is the garage and then the ancient stone wall of the North side of the house, with the 'new wing' in front. This produces a shaded gravel area, where growing things is difficult.
On the house wall there is a newly (2nd year) planted Morello Cherry. I am thrilled with it. Our lovely helper put up a substantial support for it and it is, so far, a beautiful fan. Wonder how long that will last. Last year it had quite alot of blossom (the real sort and almost as beautiful as the one we all know and love) but no fruit actually got to ripening stage. This year, it will be covered in a short time from now. Will they set and ripen? Will I get them netted in time before the birds get them? Time will tell.
In the corner, there is an old half barrel, with a miniature conifer, an ivy from some pot collection I was given, and a rather battered and sad-looking Euonymous. On the other side of the back door, is another half barrel, with a miniature rose. Catches a lot of wind, so a difficult place. I have tried lots of things but the only one to survive is the rose. Last year I surrounded it with Petunias which was successful.
The best bit is the back door itself, which has a hanging basket either side full of small blue and white Pansies.
Then on the other side, as you entered, there is a hawthorn tree, which is the remains of the end of a Hawthorn hedge, which, after a gap, backs the rest of the entrance area, the stable that follows, and on.
Next to that is a shrub, which is growing bigger fast, I am glad to say. I think it may be a Euphobia cyparissias 'Fens Ruby'. As I planted it about 4 years ago, after a very wet and heavy snow had fallen in the Spring, and destroyed a conifer (hurrah) and much else, I should know but don't remember! Next to it is a crabapple, the same as is in the Alnwick Garden. It is an upright variety, with yellow fruit, I think it is Golden Hornet.
A couple of old Laurels, kept in check with a firm hand, lead to a Sorbus. Dammit, I've trawled through old labels but haven't found it. It is upright, and has white/pinky flowers. Under it is Euonymous japonica Americana (found the lable). It was planted to try to hide a telegraph pole instead of another conifer which bit the dust (hurrah again!)
A very old Lilac comes next, white and still flowering well, maybe because I have to prune it hard to allow cars to turn! Then there is a rather messy bit, up to the stable
As you will gather, the entrance is rather boring, but that's how it is. I could do more if it wasn't for the gales which funnel past the end of the house extension, which need to be broken.
That's it for this chat. Pleeaase come back to see the proper parts of the garden

13 comments:

Louise Vaan said...

What a lovely stroll. I have no garden, just a rubbish little yard waiting to be filled with pots. Sigh!

toady said...

I'd love to come and have a poke around in your garden, alas too far to come, but it sounds lovely.Toady

DevonLife said...

Gosh sounds idyllic. My garden is being built now from nothing by a field of mud - no plants, nothing! how I envy your established perennials and lilac tree. Mmm stop for sigh.

Suffolkmum said...

That was a lovely garden stroll. It does sound idyllic. Lovely gardens and Northumberland are two of my favourite things, you have them both!

Un Peu Loufoque said...

My, your garden sounds wonderful... dare I say it reminds me of a certain walk around a swiss village I went on not long ago in the company of Mandy...she recommended it to banish all the nastiness. personally I prefer your.... far more soothing.

ps I am trying to type slower.

Tattieweasle said...

It sounds delicoulsy organsied and you keep the labels - the chickens keep movng mine and most of the plant identification is done on pink blousy job, thorns, no scent, stands yea high (standard rose)! I just love lilacsesp this time of year as well! Fabulous.

Elizabeth Musgrave said...

lovely stroll. i keep the labels too but cant always find them!

Pondside said...

What a lovely garden tour! I am so nosey - love to know the names of things and will try to follow your good example and keep tags! The azalea is gorgeous.

Maggie Christie said...

Thanks for the lovely look around the garden, throughly enjoyable! Such a beautiful picture too. Mags.

lixtroll said...

Matron has just popped in to tell you not to worry, the chat room has gone down temporarily owing to an error on Google which is preventing us cleaning out the fosses to make room for new posts!

You can still blog away merrily here on your own page, and to leave comments on all the others.

Aunt-Eunice said...

Hello - where did you train 100 years ago? - I was at Pershore ooh just a quarter of a century ago. How time flies...

Exmoorjane said...

Gorgeous garden, Withy.....how I yearn for a garden that is on the flat(ish)......can't wait to go to Alnwick in the summer - off to Northumberland (first time!) for holidays and Alnwick top of the list. Now I'm going to go back and read your earlier blogs......
janexx

lixtroll said...

Matron is visiting again with an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

The chat-room is experiencing problems with overloading which we think is causing it to be marked as SPAM, which is in effect locking us all out :-

So in the mean time: each day please look out for the post called ANNOUNCE NEW BLOGS HERE and put your announcements in as comments on that post.

This will still leave space for one personal post per person which we can all comment on.

This is purely a temporary measure, we are keen to get the chatroom back to the weird and wonderful way it was going before - we are looking into various options at the moment (by the way, have you noticed that option is an anagram of potion) - WesterWitch! put down that cauldron!