After I bought my house last winter I discovered in spring what grows around the garden and how vulnerable to drought and sun scorch it is in summer. The sandy soil of my windy coastal garden had been depleted during decades of vegetable growing by the late former owner.
The hedgerows were patchy, bent and dwarfed by wind. Many large, old but lichened
shriveling apple trees were scattered over a meadow with wild flowers in
an old fashioned orchard. Around the house there was mostly grass and some seriously outgrown ornamental bushes.
I decided to overhaul my garden. I got inspired by permaculture ideas and especially this video of a luxuriant garden in Belgium: http://youtu.be/6GEYYle0IDE
I also kept in mind the variety of uses we can get from plants: aromatic and medicinal herbs, leaf and root vegetables, berries, fruits, ornamental or perfume flowers, basket and cloth making twigs, etc
30.08.2014
- I planted a mulberry tree (morus nigra) along the west hedge of the house, in a sunny, slightly sheltered place, away from the old apple tree's shadow. I added some"Champost" organic fertiliser to the garden soil before placing the potted young tree from the nursery, and watered heavily.
- I covered the ground with the same compost around my berry bushes in the frontyard (red currand, black currant, josta berry, boysenberry, blueberries, gooseberry). I mixed the compost with special acid soil for rhododendron in the cases of blueberries. Then I watered my 4 blueberry bushes with 30ml of aluminium sulfate in 10l of rainwater.
- I planted a strawberry on the border of the acid bed, near a rhododendron shoot.
Then I planted the other 5 'Ostara' strawberry plants along the eastern hedge of the house. I prepared the ground by trimming the hedge bushes, cutting the grass and weeding out moss.
During those transplants a shoot and a twig broke off so I dipped them in rooting hormone and planted in moist seeding soil in a pot, sitting on the patio.
01/09/2014
- I uncrowded a hanging 'Toscana' strawberry pot (bought on sale) by cutting some shoots (3). I added some rooting hormone and planted them in small pots filled with mixed flower and seeding soil.
04/09/2014
- Cut 2 wild trees (no fruits) on the north side of the shed. They were growing in the outgrown forsythia and were getting too shady for my backyard.
- Cut down all the fig trees growing in front of my southern windows. They had no fruits, so no regrets! However I kept some fig canes growing in front of this southern wall (between windows) in hope to get fruits next year.
05/09/2014
- The fallen trees were cut in small pieces which are now standing where we will install another veggie bed next year as to add some natural leaf compost.
- On the west side of the backyard, in between old apple trees, and wild plum tree, some unknown tree (no fruits) was cut because it was shading the area where I plan to dig a pond.
19/09/2014
- I planted a potted, blooming and fragrant Rosa damascena 'Ispahan' below the dining room window (south facing wall)
- I planted a 'pink lemon' blueberry bush below a pine tree (east hedge in the backyard), near 2 other blueberry bushes, and added peat moss, before 2 tranberry bushes (vaccinium macrocarpon 'Howes') were added as ground cover.
20/09/2014
- I planted 2 'Coryllus maxima' (hazelnut) in partly shady spots on my east hedge. Wild hazelnut shrubs were growing there but not bearing any fruit, so I decided to give a helping hand to nature by selecting good nut trees, clearing upper hedge branches and fertilizing with compost.
27/09/2014
- We halved the forsythia bush to make space for a pear tree.
- Cleared twigs and branches in front of the robinia in order to make space for a peach tree
03/10/2014 & 04/10/2014
Planted 2 peach trees: "Frost" along my West housewall and "Benedicte" between the old triple Robinia and my working shed.
4 bare root old roses: Rosa Gallica, Rosa Centifolia and 2 Rosa Damascena in 100 liters of special rose soil.
3 pear trees "Concorde", "Doyenne du Comice", "Pierre Corneille" in a triangle along the grass field in the backyard.
3 pink currant "Champagne" in the northern hedge (near the ditch)
1 canadian bunchberry (cornus canadensis) as ground cover because I hope it will compete with invading weed around rhododendron and hydrangea in a partial shed and acid soil bed. As a bonus it is bearing edible fruits
2 Rubus x stellarcticus and 3 bilberry plants (vaccinium myrtillus) for the blueberry guild below a pine tree at the back of the garden.
1 boysenberry vine along a hedge between (young and small) mulberry tree. Wild blakcurrant vines are nturally growing nearby so it is probably a good idea to plant here.
- All my plants (except roses) came in pots, so when I planted them there was naturally an excess of soil left after closing the holes. I gathered all that garden soil, of different qualities and used most of it to make up a huge bed on top of half composted tree roots in the hedge of my backyard. I strengthened the sides of the bed with branches and twigs cut while clearing my bushes and hedges last month. I planted a pink currant in that bed.
22/10 & 23/10 Planted
**Rubus medana 'Tayberry'
**golden rasperry 'Rubus idaeus 'Fallgold'
**sea buckthorn "orange energy" (female)
* jostaberry
** honeyberry
*blueberry ...
*tyttebær
* 2 vines (grape): 'Vitis hybrid 'Schuyler'', 'Lakmont'
* Aronia melanocarpa 'Aron'
03/11/2014
I used the soil from the front garden where I planted a magnolia to level up the ground on the backgarden hedge, near the ditch to the field. I planted there an "Amelanchier alnifolia" to patch up a hole in the hedge. Then I added compost and dead leaves to top dress the bed and finally mulched around.
06/12/2014 Planted:
- Mirabelle plum tree "prunus cerasifera" near the very old plum tree where it can take the space left after sick branches were destroyed during a storm
- rasperrry-strawberry "rubus phoenicolasisus" near the second garden pole, and sage bed.
- red elderberry "sambucus racemosa" on the edge of the ditch at the back the garden, behind sambucus nigra and the branch compost place.
- "rubus odoratus" between 3 apple tree in the north west corner the garden.
14/12/2014
I started digging a hole for a pond. I transported the soil to the back hedge in order to have loose soil where to plant more bushes for my berry bush wind break
ThenI planted some plants I had been growing in pots or a few months
- 2 pink strawberry 'Toscana' (cuttings taken in autumn) south of the young fig tree
- apple mint near the dwarf pear tree
- 2 strawberries around the neighbor's lemon balm at the back of the garden
17/12/2014
I received small rare plants from Ribanjou, a nursery in western France, and planted them immediately:
- Rubus parviflorus (thimbleberry) in the northern hedge (edible wind break) near the field ditch. It was planted into a big bed made of the pond ground and some compost. I added 4 jacinthes bulbs (2 red, 2 purple) that were leftover from christmas decorations.
- Rubus illecebrosus (Jordbær-Hindbær) also in the northern hedge (edible wind break), and in another bed, behind a young pink currant bush and Sambucus nigra, left of Sambucus racemosa.
- Rubus occidentalis (black rasperry) between the dwarf old apple tree and the new dwarf pear tree.
- Rubus Arctucus as ground over between bluberry plants, near the eastern hedge in the backyard, below a huge pine tree
- Prunus Tomentosa (Nanking cherry) in a hole of the southern hedgerow on the side of an old lilac, as sea resistant wind break.
- Elaeagnus multiflora (Goumi, Cherry silverberry) near lavendula stoechias on the northermost side of vegetables bed, as open field wind break
- Rubus tricolor (Chinese bramble) as ground cover between an old giand apple tree and wild mapple trees, near new berry bushes
ALL these plants produce edible berries in addition to their lovely spring flowers.
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