From Sarah's garden to yours
Autumn is the middleman between the lofty heights of summer days and frigid lows of winter chills. It is a time of transition between hot, and cold and the time spent in the garden is no longer driven by what needs to be done and it is up to the gardener to decide what they want to do. It is also a good time to have a good look at your garden and ask yourself some challenging questions:
Do you actually like your garden?
Is it a garden you have inherited when you moved into your house and while you may have changed the wallpaper in the living room, you are still mowing around the same lawn, weeding the same garden beds, and pruning the same shrubs.
Does it continue to suit your needs?
Are you grand entertainers with people over every weekend for a BBQ? Can you do this in style or is the seating area limited by garden beds that take up too much space. Are you private people who need a green oasis that isn’t overlooked and don’t need a large entertaining area? Are you a night owl who only really gets to enjoy the garden in the twilight hours? Does your garden need more effort to maintain than you have time for?
Does it work for your age and stage?
Maybe it is a garden more suited to a different stage in life. The large lawn was perfect for kids to kick a football around and have the trampoline in the sight line from the kitchen window. But now the kids are older or have gone completely and the only action the lawn gets is with the frequent push of the lawn mower. Or as a young couple you didn’t mind the rose bushes with sharp thorns and berry laden bushes of dubious toxicity, but with the arrival of small children or puppies, you can see potential dangers at every turn.
Is it feeding you enough, or too much?
With a growing family it would make sense to extend the edible garden to help ease the burden of the weekly shop to feed hungry mouths and hollow legs. Or empty nesting can mean a vegetable patch is too big and too much work for just a couple of folks who can now enjoy the luxury of eating out a little more frequently than before.
Is it safe?
Over time the earth can move. Tree roots can make the ground uneven; paths can become slippery. Steep steps that were once easy to skip down are now a challenge for aging knees. Do wasps or dangerous creatures lurk in the undergrowth? Have metal structures rusted away to leave jagged edges? Wooden furniture and structures can rot over time and become an accident waiting to happen.
Are the utilities functional?
Are the bins in plain sight creating an unpleasant vista from the living room window, or are they impractically too far away to make taking the rubbish out on a cold winter day a thankless task? Are the taps in the right place to make watering the garden in the heat of summer an easy job? Are the manhole covers and access hubs still accessible? Do you even know where they are? Is the fence still in good shape or does it need repairs. Is the clothesline in the right place or is it an eyesore?
The good thing about gardens is they are temporary – in the grand scheme of things. A labour of love can be wiped away with the swipe of a digger when a property changes hands, or after a lifetime of care and attention, nature can reclaim the land and apply its own design as soon as the gardener’s back is turned. All plants die, some quickly within days of planting but more often it is within the natural life cycle of the plant as soon as a growing season for annual plants and longer than our lifetime for most of the trees. Digging out and replacing plants isn’t taboo. They can even be swapped or sold without guilt or waste. Nothing about a garden is permanent.
This gives us the freedom and permission to make changes as frequently as we see fit, from a tweak here and there to replacing tired old plants, or to keep abreast of seasonal trends; to a major overhaul, stripping the whole garden back to a blank canvas of bare earth to recreate a new garden that is more suited your needs and desires.
Now, in the beginning of the slow season is the perfect time to sit and observe the garden, remembering the heyday of summer, noticing the bones of the garden as the leaves begin to fall from the trees, and really examine its functionality. Is this the garden of your dreams or is there room for improvement?
All it may need is an action plan for the maintenance tasks for the winter months to keep it in good shape for the new season or decide it could be improved with the addition of an irrigation system. You may find yourself searching online for local digger drivers because you realise you’ve been maintaining someone else’s dream and the garden you have isn’t the one you actually want.
Try not to bite off more than you can chew
It can be easy to get carried away when making changes to a garden, so it is important to give yourself clear boundaries. Decide what you want to do and set a budget and a realistic timeline. As much as the makeover shows on the telly suggest it can be done in a weekend, the best results come from a slower approach. Reach out to experts for advice or help and always check with the local authorities so you don’t burst a pipe or chop down a protected tree.
In a garden you can unleash your creativity and make your personal space something that truly reflects you, your design aesthetic, your needs and wants, and if that changes over time, then so can your garden. You don’t need to put up with a garden you don’t actually like.
