Mayo County Council gave me two triangles in which to build my garden: one of concrete for the container garden and hanging out my laundry; the other a triangle of compacted muddy soil, sown with tenacious grass seed combined with builder’s rubble.
Nothing in my garden is sheltered from the south-westerly wind, which pummels straight off the hills at the back. Every gardener has challenges, and one of mine was to find things that will grow in extremely windy conditions.
I’ll happily take that wind every day of the week, as it comes from the open pasture and hills out the back, which allows me to watch horses while I sit on my exercise bike, or enjoy the sight of cows munching in the distance as I sit with my breakfast.
The other challenges are having only one good leg and 1.5 dodgy lungs, combined with the fact that my entire plot is on top of an absolutely massive bramble root system. My neighbour told me when I moved in that over the 40 years he’s lived next door, he’d seen many try to build a garden on this patch; all failed.
The container garden has been a treat. Sheltered from view I sit and enjoy the colours in peace and privacy. I never sit for long, ‘cos I’m off up and deadheading this, tying up that, studying the other and getting mud on my fingers every day.
Good for the soul.
I’ve also used that space to take cuttings and grow the plants that I wanted in my formal bed.
...baby brachyglottis for the front of the bed... cuttings taken from himself behind the lavendar...
First job, as soon as I moved in 18 months ago: cover the entire grassy triangle with Mypex membrane, which lets the water through but denies light and life to everything underneath. Don’t be tempted to use black plastic. It’s not porous so it’s not healthy for living beasties who live below.
Did I say entire? Well ,no, I left the grass exposed in the little triangle where I wanted wildflowers to grow. So the grass grew until last winter, when slowly slowly, slowly.
In wellies and mud mud mud,all the time
taking breaks
hearing the wind.
And my raspy old breath.
What a racket.
Like a flash flood forced through rice cakes.
Slowly muddily removing the grass from the wildflower bed. Two hour sessions of lifting this barren lifeless turf, not an earthworm or creepy-crawly in sight, dead soil, perfect for the resilient unwelcome grass provided by Co. Mayo.
For a small job removing that grass from what is now my wildflower bed was a massive task. Grass usually wins in the end, although as I said before, on this plot bramble will supersede all.
I really didn’t expect it to work so well. I was thinking at least 20% of the grass would return, which I’d still see as a result, but scarcely any has returned so far.
Grasses and chickstickers come through the gap in the fence, and bramble from all directions, but the grass is under control. It pops up here and there, but I’m on it like a wasp on jam.
Actually, that’s a lie: none of it is under control. I’m just on top of it, on my little patch, at the moment.
That’s all it is.
‘On top of it’ is as good as it gets.
I’m not trying to subjugate the powers of nature. I’m merely encouraging, enabling, and the rest is out of my hands.
That grassless lifeless triangle was then given bags of garden fertiliser, wood chips, potting compost and more garden fertiliser. I was nicking worms from friends’ gardens, bringing ‘em home and dropping them in there.
Then I sowed my wildflower seed, walking on top of it, all over for a while, and moved on.
That bed has never been watered or weeded. I’m not deadheading it. I’m letting it do its thing and loving how many plants that weren’t in my wildflower seed collection are now showing their faces.
That makes me smile.
I took all the containers growing plants for the new formal bed and put them on the mypex where the formal bed is now, laying an edge border with some old laminates...
That mountain stood in front of me and several times challenged my will.
But slowly slowly.
Rake and stop.
Breathe.
Slowly.
Wasn’t as tough as it looked.
Compared to the grass it was a doddle, but oh yeh! Now I was walking on stone, not flooded muddy mypex.
Oh my god that was just wonderful.
This summer I took delivery of two trellises, a tonne of topsoil, seven 25kg bags of horticultural grit and four bags of manure, to which I added five bags of fine garden compost. All of that I laid lasagne style into the new more formal bed.
Now the plants are all in, and I’m sowing the bed with feverfew seeds and the seeds of giant nigella (love in a mist) growing in my containers. I figure that’ll fill the spaces with all sorts of colour and form.
All my own seeds, my cuttings and lurrrve, but nature's work.
The only plants I bought were the fuchsia and the honeysuckle - everything else I grew myself. The plan is that the brachyglottis cuttings in front will grow and be clipped into a low hedge, forming a border. The bees love its yellow flowers.
I figured if the blackberry love it so much, its cousins might like it too. I love berries, so huge thanks to Denis for the soft fruit canes.
Also thanks to Mary Munnelly for the rambling rose. I’m so glad to show you how that gorgeous tiny plant you gave me four years ago ended up taking over a wall. Looking forward to next spring when it will be covered in flowers. I’ll make sure to show you when that happens.
Thanks Mary!
Now I have my yin/yang garden. Wildflower anarchy and freedom on the left. Order in the bed on the right.
Hmm, well ... as much ‘order’ as a rambling rose and two honeysuckles allow.
I built my garden, and now the plants can grow.
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