The Lay of the Land

The Lay of the Land

I’ve decided with Room Three in the Palace to attempt to do things as close to the book as my wilful disregard for following instructions will allow.  Ideally I’d like the inspiration for The Palace Garden to come out of my head, inspired by the land, the conditions and the things I like.  I appreciate there is nothing new under the sun and I’ll be the first to admit my travels to see beautiful gardens may spark an inkling as to what is possible, but it will never be my intention to copy anyone’s work.  I’ve never managed to follow trends and as a teen I was always a dollar short and a week late to fit in with the fashion and styles everyone else seemed to instinctively know about.  And so, this garden is not so much about breaking rules of design, but naively ignoring what everyone else is doing.

Having said that there are values and principles that have worked for centuries, so I would be a tad foolish to go off piste willy nilly.  So, I’ll be occasionally checking in with these tried-and-true garden design suggestions to make sure what I want to achieve will create the kind of garden that naturally makes people feel welcome and enjoy the space.    I’m sure there will bound to be someone who says, ‘this is just like that garden in that far flung place.’  A far-flung place I wouldn’t have been to.  I mean if the kiwi Richard Pearse and the American Wright Brothers both invented flight within 18 months of each other in the early 1900’s on opposite sides of the world, then someone, somewhere could have had the same garden vision in their head as I do.  And that’s ok.

So, in line with this attempt to cast a nod in the direction of the ‘rules’,  I’ve done a site survey.

For the shape, this is what the land gave me.  It is roughly a rectangle but one of the corners is pushed in to account for the contours of the land and it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly.  It feels natural and right and strangely enough it fits in with my vision for the garden, although I can’t tell you if the shape of the land or the vision for the garden came first.

The size drove me nuts.  I measured it several times with the help of different people at the other end of the tape measure and got a different answer each time.  The last time I measured twice and was thorough but what finally defined the edges was a drone image from above with a length of wood 1m long positioned on the ground as a reference point.  Then I went to my computer and super imposed a grid onto the image to give a reliable size.  The satisfying thing was it tied in completely with the last measure session.  So now I have my boundaries on paper and can start to transition the dream in my head onto paper to see if it will work.

Ideally I need this land to be level so I can do what I need to do.  That’s why I got the tractor to do it’s best to smooth things over, and why I made Hubby the Un-Gardener to drag about my home-made levelling contraption.  It still isn’t perfectly level and there is a slight drop from one side of the garden to the other, in both directions.  But I don’t see this as a problem because as I work across the garden putting in the hard landscaping it can be addressed on a local level.  I could waste a lot of time and energy trying to get it right, only to have the wind move the sand.  It is close enough.

The great thing about this garden is you couldn’t get more ‘full sun’ so that is almost like starting with a blank canvas of weed free soil.  If I want shade I can build structures to provide it or plan for shade created by structures I want.

Beyond the garden is mostly wild untamed land rife with Kikuyu, Muehlenbeckia, gorse, tree lupins and the evil box thorn.  Experience has taught me gardening with these hostile neighbours is to have strong boundaries.  Across the front and back of the garden is a bit like urban sprawl – once you have cleared land at your back, there are none of the nasty weeds to encroach.  So, the adjoining garden room boundaries are safe zones that require little care. 

On one side is Muehlenbeckia and Kikuyu competing for existence up a steep slope.  I have plans to fix the race and make the Muehlenbeckia the star.  I have experience doing this in Room Two, beside the stairs and with a bit of ‘Little and Often’ treatment it will be fabulous – just you wait and see.

The final side is the wildest and after just spending 3 hours redefining the wild  side of Room Two, I am going to invest in a barrier product that will be buried along the length of both Room Two and Room Three.  It is 40cm deep and will be enough to keep the Kikuyu rhizomes from sneaking through the soil and popping up unwanted in the garden.

And that is about the size of it, and it feels good to look at the challenges I’ll face before I start so I can begin understanding the basic maintenance that will be required to keep the outside out of the garden rather than hoping for the best and creating a rod for my own back. 

Next up on this journey of discovery is climate and soil, although I think I already know what challenges these will throw up.  If I look at them objectively they can also add their two cents to the design process and can even add value.

Come again soon – this winter is only a week old and I’m getting stuff done.

Sarah the Gardener  : o)