Saturday May 19 2012
Gardening Archive
TheVillage Gardening
Evolution of a garden
Posted on May 13 2009 at 2:26:02 0 comments
Nicky Sethia on the unplanned creation at her Rowney Green home.
Seechem is a historical house, well known locally. The house itself is about 550 years old and although it has undergone many changes over those years, for the vast majority of the time it was a wonderful working farm.
When we arrived 14 and a half years ago, the garden did not exist in its present form. There were some very old apple and pear trees which were the remnants of the original orchard, most of which were falling down; a flower border ran around the house and along a narrow path leading to the front door but the rest was just grass.
Over the past 14 years we have made a garden which has gradually evolved, rather than having been planned in detail from the start. A formal design just did not work for us or for Seechem. I feel that a garden reflects the personality of those who make it – maybe that is why a formal design did not feel right!
We started by preserving as many trees as possible. The apple and pear trees are of course very old varieties and difficult to identify, but some of them were used for cider and perry making and we still use them for this today. More fruit trees have been planted including plum, damson and cherry but we have modified the size of the orchard for our needs.
During the last two months we have created a new vegetable garden and this is still in the making as I write. The rest of the garden was essentially created 10 to 12 years ago when many trees were planted, a drive to the front garden was extended, two ponds were created, a rose walk formed, the house border widened and flower beds made with a wide variety of plants.
A rockery appeared as a result of footings which had to be dug for the renovation of the cottage – I was told that I could either move the soil myself or make it into a rockery…it stayed! At the time, our four children were young and needed space to play various ball games, and for this reason I left plenty of grass areas.
We try to encourage as much wildlife as possible and a large variety of birds, many butterflies and dragonflies, together with two families of moorhens born and bred in the garden last year, make this their home. We have also created a large pond at the beginning of the drive which is a wildlife haven with ducks, frogs, newts and much more.
This year we want to share the garden with you and put all the proceeds to cancer charities in memory of my best friend Dee and of Peter’s brother, Frank, both of whom sadly died of cancer recently. Peter lives in Seechem Cottage and has worked on the garden with me throughout our time here.
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