You might have seen a few of my pix on social media as I created a Mediterranean garden while I mainly stayed at home as part of the move to stem the progress of Covid-19. When we moved to this house, years ago, the garden was bisected by a stone wall. At that time, I took it down and used part of the stone to build a rockery – now a rather overgrown but pretty hump by the pond in the garden landscape – and raised beds in a far corner of the garden.
Over the years, the raised beds became overgrown, not least by a conifer that I’d planted behind them to hide next door’s shed. The conifer grew like Jack’s beanstalk and was in danger of collapsing a drain so it had to come down. It left a fresh view of next door’s shed, not improved by the years, and a jungle with the old stone beds lurking somewhere in the middle.
The decision was made to reclaim the corner of the garden with a shed of our own (if you can’t beat them, join them). Builders moved in to create the base and, as it’s the sunniest spot in the garden, I took the opportunity to lobby for a patio as part of the same project, which eventually came about. And it left us with a load of stone, gathered into two heaps by the builders and left.
Last year, I took this photo in Malta.
I decided I wanted to use the stone to create something similar in Northamptonshire.
It was going to be interesting because the stone was heaped on the site of the eventual Mediterranean garden and the whole area was a mess of holly, ivy, cotoneaster and weeds that had held sway for several years. I began by making the two heaps of stone into one. I wish I’d taken a pic of the eventual heap because it was about as tall as I am. Then I began to dig. The digging took weeks and the garden wheelie bin was stuffed time after time.
Puppy-in-law turned up to ‘help’ by getting into holes I was digging and trying to tempt me to throw sticks for him. Unfortunately, I decided to put the stick of the moment out of his reach …
He jumped up and knocked the top off the birdbath and a chunk broke off. Now I look at the pic I see it was already cracked.
Here’s a quick trip through digging progress followed by the laying of the membrane and stone.
Eventually, I had … THIS!
You’ll notice the birdbath was still broken, although the missing chunk is turned away from the camera. After trying unsuccessfully to find a replacement top, I decided to make the most of what I had and it became a planter instead.
So that’s my Mediterranean garden – and an area that shouldn’t need weeding for a while!
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Sue Moorcroft blog 