On taking over
Denis Wood
It is good counsel to contain oneself in patience, and live with a new garden for a whole year before making drastic alterations, both to assess the value of the general arrangement and the Planting, and to find out where daffodils or other bulbs have been Planted. It may also in some cases be instructive to try to enter into the mind of the man who made the garden before.
First the state of the trees Should be looked to. Important large trees, cedars or oaks among them, may need the attentions of a tree surgeon to remove damaged or infected branches, to strengthen forks with cables and to clear out centres of trees which are becoming confused with too many branches. Large trees are precious and irreplacable in a life time and deserve to be taken care of.
The provision of shelter belts or simpler screens of trees can be
Considered; hedges should be cared for by clearing out the
hedge bottoms, putting on a Complete fertiliser when the ground is wet and warm, and covering this with a mulch of animal manure. Evergreen hedges ran be trimmed in August or September, but serious reshaping or shortening must only be done in April. The right time to prune thorn hedges is in the winter; beech and hornbeam hedges are best trimmed in July. Fertility of the garden will be an important consideration, and the Provision of compost bins. It is always useful to make contact With the Horticultural Adviser of the County Education Department to get the benefit of his local experience on growing conditions and also to buy for oneself a soil testing kit. The water supply and drainage should also be assessed and, if necessary, an improved
,suPPly provided, or field drains put in. Climbing plants may need to be taken down, trimmed and refixed.
Next, the lines of communication 'must be examined, firm paths Made leading to essential parts of the garden, the over-hanging branches cleared from above to to avoid having to stoop and bend. Large old greenhouses, even if Partly dilapidated, may not be entirely beyond being brought back into some kind of service. If they
Can be made weather-proof and frost-proof by means of polythene
transparent sheeting, they could be used as cold houses for peaches against walls and for fruit trees in Pots. This is an unusual and at tractive method of growing fruit
in a small garden, bushes established in pots can be bought
from some nurserymen and stood about on the terrace for pure decoration for most of the year. They only require to be taken into shelter from the very early spring until the fruit is developed. It may also be possible to bring back into use one end of a large greenhouse by, to an extent, 'cannibalising' parts of the rest of it and putting in an electric heater or an oil heater to keep out the frost.
An anomalous tumble-down outhouse of stone or brick and flint, abandoned by a previous owner, can be made into a picturesque ruin by a little inspired knocking about here and there, clearing out its inside, planting ferns and deadly nightshade, and ivy on the outside, for birds of evil omen to roost in, and hoot despairingly in autumn dusks.
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