It might be winter, but there’s plenty to do: our expert on how to start a small, climate-friendly garden from scratch.
The moment I knew our home purchase was final, last April, I ransacked my mother’s garden for cuttings. It was still a little early in the season, but I couldn’t hold back: budding twigs of viburnum, potentilla, black elder and buddleja were thrust into compost. Despite having gardened professionally for well over a decade, managing and maintaining gardens from green city pockets up to modest rural estates, this would be my first ever garden.
It is a small, slim rectangle: 80 square metres of chalky, free-draining Hampshire soil – two-thirds of which is lawn – in a village fringing the North Wessex Downs. It is north-facing yet exposed, and therefore surprisingly sun baked between the equinoxes, and, to our delight, relatively free of pre-existing structures: a tiny shed, a thin strip of border, a miscellany of pots and a beer-branded barbecue – my potting bench, until it is forcibly rehomed – but otherwise a horticultural blank canvas.
There is a strong argument for spending a full year observing a new garden before making significant adjustments. My opposing view is that gardens are for the doing, whatever time of year. So, in the hope of encouraging those who, like me, are endeavouring towards sustainable and affordable gardening, here’s what I’ve done so far, and the tasks I’ll be doing in the next few months.
First, I took stock of what was already here – it is surprising just how many plants can reside within an area both small and seemingly sparse. I counted some 30 varieties, including hellebore, aquilegia and Solomon’s seal, and for every weed there was an attractive self-seeder: white-flowering herb Robert alongside rampant bittercress; gorgeous feverfew and purple violet next to dandelion and bindweed.
Desirable or otherwise, existing plants reveal much about a garden, from soil type to light distribution, and by multiplying those that thrive – by means of division – herbaceous perennials can be quickly bulked up as ground cover. Of those I’d earmarked in summer, I’m now splitting and replanting pulmonaria, marjoram and cranesbill geranium, creating fat new plants. Typically, this is best undertaken as the soil warms towards spring.
