Oriental Garden
' When we first shifted into the house in 2005 this part of the garden was fenced off as a safe haven close to the house for our puppies Goldie and Teddy. Anyone with dogs would be aware that they love being close to their owners, and they like digging and rolling etc. So any sort of a garden plan for this area was put on the back burner and it remained very basic for about five years with one claret ash tree in the middle, until they passed.
I went to my Mum's house on one particular day in the winter months after they had gone and we sat down and watched a Monte Don video about grand gardens being restored in England. There was one in particular that really got me keen to develop this area into an Oriental type garden. Strickly not Japanese, or Chinese but just loosely “Oriental”. Thankyou Monte.
All the trees in this garden are deciduous; Claret Ash, three Japanese Maples and three Robinia ‘lace ladys’. Around the edge we planted alternating white and double purple rose of Sharon hibiscus with ‘Kerrie’s Canna’ recurrently between each. We put seven table grape vines around the fence which have had a good crop of sultanas since the third year they’d been in.
There are plantings of nandinas and also a liriope mascari border on the outer edge of the garden. A wisteria ‘Amethyst Jewel’ is standardised on a three tiered ‘Dr Seuss’ type metal stand created by Paul. There are various statues about the garden including a Buddha, a tea house and a pair of Shoe dogs. I added a nice life sized pig, some fish, a couple of cranes and a platypus, just because.
The oriental bridge that Paul made is a special feature with the dry river bed running underneath it. When we were pouring the concrete for this little work of art our bracing underneath (being old large plastic pots) at one stage collapsed and we both thought we’d made a disaster. Now we laugh about it but at the time three barrows of wet cement oozing out all over the place was pretty stressful.
This year (2018) with a mould problem on the vines, overcrowding and difficulty in netting the vines to keep the birds off, we are seriously thinking about moving the vines to the wedding garden in the winter. Stay tuned.
I went to my Mum's house on one particular day in the winter months after they had gone and we sat down and watched a Monte Don video about grand gardens being restored in England. There was one in particular that really got me keen to develop this area into an Oriental type garden. Strickly not Japanese, or Chinese but just loosely “Oriental”. Thankyou Monte.
All the trees in this garden are deciduous; Claret Ash, three Japanese Maples and three Robinia ‘lace ladys’. Around the edge we planted alternating white and double purple rose of Sharon hibiscus with ‘Kerrie’s Canna’ recurrently between each. We put seven table grape vines around the fence which have had a good crop of sultanas since the third year they’d been in.
There are plantings of nandinas and also a liriope mascari border on the outer edge of the garden. A wisteria ‘Amethyst Jewel’ is standardised on a three tiered ‘Dr Seuss’ type metal stand created by Paul. There are various statues about the garden including a Buddha, a tea house and a pair of Shoe dogs. I added a nice life sized pig, some fish, a couple of cranes and a platypus, just because.
The oriental bridge that Paul made is a special feature with the dry river bed running underneath it. When we were pouring the concrete for this little work of art our bracing underneath (being old large plastic pots) at one stage collapsed and we both thought we’d made a disaster. Now we laugh about it but at the time three barrows of wet cement oozing out all over the place was pretty stressful.
This year (2018) with a mould problem on the vines, overcrowding and difficulty in netting the vines to keep the birds off, we are seriously thinking about moving the vines to the wedding garden in the winter. Stay tuned.