Blog: trying to right the wrongs in my messy front garden!
One of the most satisfying tasks is the early winter garden tidy-up, but it can seem overwhelming if you’ve let your plot grow out of hand. Full disclosure here – my front garden is a mess. We live on a busy main road, so we don’t spend any time in this space. We use the side and back gardens a great deal, and we use the back door to go in and out, rarely the front. That’s one of the problems – out of sight, out of mind!
The front garden is a small space, about 5 metres square, south-facing, with a path down one side. Three years ago, we fenced in the western side, planting the climbing rose Woolerton Old Hall, a double-flowering clematis and lavender. Read more about planting a bare-root rose.
Despite its sunny aspect, light has been limited by overgrown shrubs, especially the dreaded ivy, Phormium, Berberis purpurea and a cream climbing rose. If I could turn back time, I would never have planted any of these. Partly due to their affordability, partly due to ignorance, these were planted over 30 years ago, when I had limited knowledge. I wanted things that grew quickly, and as the soil area was covered by an 18-inch layer of large chunks of gravel, something that wouldn’t die. It’s a nightmare to plant anything! You can’t dig it.
Plant in haste, repent at leisure. I’d always advise anyone to plan and research their garden and take their time. My front garden is proof that you will regret cutting corners! Here are the main tasks we started this weekend. They can be spread out, just as well as you’ll need fine weather and avoid waterlogged or frosted conditions, especially if you have to walk on grass or soil.
Climbing roses
The garden’s two climbing roses illustrate the difference between buying cheaply and without consideration, and buying for your space and conditions – right plant, right place. The unnamed climber is planted far too close to the front door and always outgrows the onelisk it grows on, leading to spiky stems invading the path. I’ve hard pruned this, thanks to my trusty STIGA battery pruners. They got a workout! We plan to remove this at a later date.
Pruning Woolerton Old Hall is a doddle. It’s trained on the new fence on sturdy wires and is a five-minute job. Read more about pruning climbing roses.
Early winter garden tidy-up – Ivy
Despite being great for wildlife, ivy can quickly become an invasive pest if planted in the wrong place. Guilty as charged! The initial idea was to have two plants, Hedera canariensis and Hedera Paddy’s Pride, growing solely on the boundary wall. As ivy roots when its stems touch the ground, the plants have run rampant, swamping a lovely weeping flowering cherry and the Phormium.
My aim for the day was just to tidy up the ‘hedge’ part and any invasive bits growing into next door. I’ll continue to chip away at this over the winter. Read more about growing ivy and using ivy for soap.
Phormium
I planted this New Zealand flax when it was a newish plant. Unfortunately, it has turned into a giant, and I’d advise anyone NOT to plant this basic variety. It is fit only for council roundabouts! However, there are now hundreds of much smaller, colourful varieties that are great in a garden setting. Read more about using Phormiums in small gardens.
It’s not even easy to trim them back. The strap-like leaves are very tough and fibrous. Even the STIGA, which makes mincemeat for everything, takes four attempts to sever a leaf. I’m going to experiment some more with other tools to keep hacking it back. For the moment, I’ve removed the dead leaves (these will just pull out) and cut back a small section.
Early winter garden tidy-up – Berberis thunbergii f. atropurpurea (purple Japanese barberry)
Oh, these were everywhere in the 1980s! Again, there are many better varieties about now. This very spiny shrub is a horror. The wood is tough, so you’d struggle with secateurs, but the STIGA made short work of it. I cut it back by about half, meaning the light floods into our bay window.
Bear’s breeches (Acanthus mollis)
The first herbaceous perennial I bought, at great expense from the Next gardening catalogue in the 80s. I still love the plant, but be careful what you wish for! Its huge taproot makes it impossible to get rid of. Even a tiny sliver of root will create a new plant. Its huge, glossy, wavy leaves are one of the highlights of the garden, but it needs trimming back. An easy job, thankfully.
Early winter garden tidy-up – Spreading leaves on beds
A large whitebeam overhangs the front garden path, and the fallen leaves make it slippery. Thankfully, you don’t have to pack them into bags to rot them down into leaf mould. There’s been a rise in people placing leaves directly onto the soil to let them rot down naturally. You can enhance the effect by ‘lasagna layering’. On top of the leaves, place plain brown cardboard, wet it, then apply well-rotted compost or manure.
Jobs still left to do
Remember, you can spread these tasks out over winter, when plants are dormant. Completing my front garden in one session was never going to happen – we filled the gardening bin with cuttings, etc that couldn’t be composted. These are the jobs I hope to get finished by spring:
- Cut the Phormium down by half.
- Complete cutting back the ivy.
- Remove the old climbing rose.
- Prune blackcurrants (they were part of an edible front garden experiment).
- Hard prune Cornus alba Elegantissima in February. This large shrub has attractive red bark in winter, so this will be the last thing to do.
- Even though the bronze fennel looks scruffy, I leave it standing for as long as possible. It provides a habitat for overwintering beneficial insects and has a wonderful aniseed smell if you brush past it.
