For those who misread the title this is not about working in the garden with no clothes on but about how we plan, plant and maintain the borders at Reveley. If you look at the garden plan you will see the garden is made up of rectangles of differing sizes; generally I have not changed this layout of paths, lawn and beds just filled in the spaces created. I changed the mowing of the grass areas leaving the main lawn cut with traditional stripes, this is the only grass area fed and occasionally weedkilled. The other grass is left longer with paths cut through and I am slowly planting a mixture of bulbs to hopefully increase as the years progress. Within the planting areas which are progressively being replanted I plant some shrubs to give structure and then infill with herbaceous perennials and more bulbs. I plant close together and rarely stake plants allowing them to hold each other up (or not) and only hand weed. I mulch when we have some available and never fork through or hoe borders allowing what wants to seed itself about to do just that. We do not usually cut plants down until the spring which again allows seed dispersal and provides shelter for insects and food for birds. In the new plantings I do not plant large blocks of one variety but select similar colours of a species for a group, (for example I am selecting some pink flowered hardy geraniums for this winters replant, and there does seem to be rather a lot of them). In this way I get a lot of different plants in small area but from a distance you get a similar colour block -although I am not against a bit of colour clash as a glance in my wardrobe will prove. They do say a garden takes on the personality of its gardener so here at Reveley we have a fairly strong centre which tends to fall away as you reach the edges.
7 Jun 2014
