New year, new garden
Resolve to make your garden a magical place for the New Year
With Louisa Bell of City and Country Gardens
I’m making a new year’s resolution to make my garden the best it’s ever been. Last year I spent just a little extra time and effort sowing seeds, and tying things in as they grew, and the rewards were so noticeable. I had beautiful white sweet peas growing over my pergola and the scent was beautiful when we sat there for lunch. They all mixed in with my purple verbena bonariensis, and looked so lovely. Definitely a combination I’ll be repeating.
I sowed cosmos and Californian poppies in the borders, and large swathes of nigella – love in a mist. They all did so well, because I watered them properly, thinned them out and generally looked after them. Sometimes it’s hard to make yourself get out in the garden and life is so busy. We do create some lovely low maintenance gardens, where you can just look out of the window and it will all look neat and tidy, but higher maintenance does bring greater rewards.
Whether you’re a high or low maintenance gardener, I’d like everyone to have a beautiful garden this year. It really is easy to knock a garden into shape. It’s something we do all the time and, remember, you have a whole room out there! It really can be turned into something special.
With the addition of special seating, comfortable cushions (that stay out all year), beautifully built walls and expertly planted beds, you can have a garden that makes you long to be outside.
Some plants are especially slow growing, or can be clipped and shaped to give formality to your garden. If you’re a very tidy person, these topiary shapes are especially comforting if you like order. I like a mix of order and nature, and the clipped shapes in my garden act like punctuation in the borders.
Adding well-laid paving and laying out proper steps if levels change are also crucial for a well-presented garden. Wide enough paths with smooth, level walkways allow you to get around at night. Tripping over uneven paving on your way to the bin? Feeling your way up a dark path hoping the children didn’t leave out any toys? Sitting on a wonky chair on an even wonkier patio? Is this how you want to spend your summer again?
I am sure you all spent ages decorating your homes for Christmas and made them look gorgeous. Some even went the whole way and put lights out in the garden too. A special few decided to test the national grid’s capacity and obliterated any chance of seeing a night sky within 50 yards of their house by covering every bit of brickwork and roof with their own Las Vegas rendition.
Please, give your poor old garden a thought next year. Look at that tired old lawn, struggling along to keep green, and give the kids a suitable surface to drive in cricket stumps in the summer. Look at the shrubs that someone else planted (it was never you!) and then left to their own devices for twenty years. Look at that rose – the skinny, emaciated stem with a blackened rose hip the only proof that a flower once bloomed there.
Imagine a team of (fit) guys turning up one Monday morning. Like the Lottery advert, a hand has reached down from the sky and pointed to you! Yes, it could be you! The chaps are ready to work on your garden. Out of the van comes machinery and tools and then, materials are delivered onto site. That pile of bricks, that paving, that water feature, the lighting – yes, it’s all yours! And now look… just a few weeks later… it’s magic… a beautiful new garden appearing in place of that old, shabby pile of shrubs and moping grass! Oohhh now the exciting bit…. plants in all shapes and sizes being carried into the garden. Yes, that beautiful tree is yours for the rest of your life… oh, what gorgeous red poppies… In it all goes, dig, plant, mulch… new lawn… water feature turned on and flowing, new furniture being unpacked and put in place on the patio…
Can you see it in your mind? Yes, it’s all possible! Shall I snap my fingers now and wake you up, or would you like to call us and make it happen this year!!!!
Perhaps I could get Paul McKenna working as our rep…
Have a truly wonderful New Year, whether we see you or not, and we hope that whatever your dreams are, they come true.
An aside: We moved into new offices in December. January is a quieter time for us, although we have three sites on the go at the moment. Our team of guys all work with us full time and we cover every aspect of design and construction ‘in house’ without needing to bring in sub contractors. All of our work is fully insured and guaranteed and every person that works for us is qualified to undertake the task they are set. All machinery is used by properly trained staff, and each aspect of work that is carried out will be overseen by a foreman on each site – who really is the bees knees.
When we undertake to build a garden we supply you with a very detailed and specified quotation of all works to be carried out. We don’t do estimates. We tell you what it’s going to cost. We can tell, just by visiting your site, what kind of cost will be incurred to build a lovely garden. We would expect this figure to be true of all contractors. We don’t drive around in Mercedes, we all get our hands dirty and we work with you every single step of the way. If I have designed your garden I am available to you all of the time, and will visit site all of the time too. Kevin looks after all the construction side, and he also visits site most days. Either way, we meet or talk with the site foreman several times a day too. We pay great attention to detail and finish and make sure that each client is completely happy with their garden when we leave. If you would like references, these are available. If you would like to visit some of our gardens this can be arranged too.
Just an aside, but I’d like you to know that you’re in safe hands.
City & Country Gardens
For all the things in your garden – talk to us!
01273 202115 / 01903 892285
www.city-gardens.net
