One of the things I want to do this year is start to clothe the terraces of sleepers with some plants. My wish list is quite specific – I want year-round interest, preferably evergreen climbers that can cope with poor soil and a north-facing wall, and – most important of all – ultra-low maintenance. But I am not a gardener, and in fact my thumbs are black rather than green. I can kill almost any plant without trying.
Fortunately a college friend of Christopher’s is a keen gardener and doesn’t live too far away. I’m on leave all this week, and she had some time too, so Tuesday saw the two of us contemplating my garden. I got out the plans which the surveyor drew up to help me get planning permission, and Carol stuck post-it notes all over them with suggestions of plants that might work. I’ve got a big book of plants (bought in a fit of enthusiasm when we first moved in, and rarely consulted since!) and I looked up Carol’s suggestions and vetoed a few, particularly if they looked too needy – fully frost-hardy is an absolute must up on top of the hills! We turned the remaining plants into a shopping-list of acceptable candidates.
We then went on a trip to my local garden centre in Guarlford, recently recommended by The Independent as one of the top 50 UK garden centres, and boy are they proud of it. I was only window shopping at this stage – I wanted to see what some of the plants looked like in the flesh as it were, rather than on the pages of a book. I also wanted to price up what I might be letting myself in for so that I can budget for it. Carol, however, did have an “accident” and we left with a boot full of plants! One thing that’s really good about having a friend who is a keen gardener, is that she has a fair number of my shopping list of plants in her garden already, and has promised me some cuttings so that I can try them out and see if they survive/thrive in my garden, before I commit to buying more from the garden centre. So I hope to be able to make some progress on improving the garden this year, though it’s going to be a big project!
