Upper lawn border

Hopefully you're not bored with the garden work. Set out to tidy up this area today. I've trimmed back the ivy and generally fluffed up and dug over, under the trees.

The cordyline will be moved shortly but I'm short of a suitable container currently so thought it best to leave it there until I do. The aim for this area is to grass it but then place plenty of spring bulbs under the maple and the mountain ash in the corner.

And can you spot the chickens in the corner of their run watching me?

garden turfed!

Isn't that better? I can tell that the area shown in the second photo is going to be a lovely sitting area under the tree.
There is still some work to do in other areas of the garden; I've an old rockery I'm half way through digging out but the garden has gained in openness and space. It looks simpler with more emphasis on sweeping grass areas and smaller borders.

There is a fashion for making gardens have secret areas with 'room' divisions. Also a fashion for hiding views with lots of dense planting. In our case this approach had made it look hemmed in and had given it a somewhat claustrophobic feel. In urban situations a feeling of hiding how close you are to the neighbours is perhaps appropriate, but in a small village its nice to work with the countryside and I wanted to create a simple open space. In short there were too many overgrown shrubs. I'm looking forward to planting up the new borders but will be aiming for English cottage plants which will show seasonal variations to get away from the previous (owners) planting of grasses, bamboos and structural plants that remained green and unchanging all year around.

garden work latest

Excuse the quality of the photo as my phone struggles with the different light levels. This is the maple tree area of the garden last night after it had been cleared. Most of that area is to be grassed so that the bench can be put under the tree for some welcome shade. A new border has been created to the right.

Next garden stage

We've gone from this last summer (and its detailed in Garden work in progress and Why am I up so early )

to this today
Again its had to be sprayed due to ground elder. The rose to the right is to be moved in to the corner and then again the area will end up turfed so that we will be able to tuck a bench under the dwarf wall and the acer which has been trimmed and lifted back in to a proper tree.