The 100ft closest to the house were mainly laid to lawn. The borders amounted to approx. width of 13ft. which were overgrown with well established self sown trees of lavander, holly, forsythia, honeysuckle and what was left was a mix of perrenial weeds, ivy and the dreaded ground elder. Amoung this however were some srubs and plants worth saving. The one thing that we all thought that was most beautiful was a shared Willow tree that stands approx. 75ft and has a trunk at least 3ft wide. I say shared, as the root and the first 3ft are in my neighbours garden and the mass of twisted trunk has found its was towards the sun across the boundary line into our garden.
The lower 80ft was a mix of paving slabs, overgrown borders as mentioned, four apple trees, leylandii and a shed. The so called compost heap was approx. 4 x 8ft and covered in 'Chinese laterns'. The only semi-cultivated area was a 6 x 8ft oblong referred to as a fruit garden. This held a few red and blackcurrant bushes which were non-productive and diseased, they had to go! Amongst the weeds and bushes I found a tiny solitary goosebury bush struggling to survive. Of course I saved it! The next vacant square approx. 8 x 8ft was obviously used previously for burning rubbish, which came in very handy for us. In the summer of 2001 our first opportunity to fully utilise this lower garden section came which left us with vacant planting areas. |
