North Garden
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The North Garden is immediately behind the beech hedge that borders the road in the north west of the property. It curves around Top Pond and adjoins the Kitchen Garden on its south side and is 85 m2 in area :
The bed is relatively sunny and benefits from an almost leaf mould soil from the trees [and weeds!] that occupied this part of the garden when we first arrived. Although this is the high point of the garden, the soil is also relatively damp because it benefits from the [just] sub-surface water running down the hill from the west on top of the clay layer.
When we took over in 2015 this part of the garden also qualified for the title of 'jungle'. It was overshadowed on the west by tall evergreen trees with three metre high brambles below. The beech hedge was rapidly turning into a line of beech trees and Top Pond was found by nearly falling into it but by the end of the year the worst had been cleared away and old carpets thrown out of the house were being used as weed-killing mulch [carpets that are still being used for that purpose today - 2019 - in the glebe land]. Since then the weed seed fight has continued and much of the bed has been carpeted with [now self-sown] nasturtiums, borage and Verbena bonariensis although some specimen plants have been incorporated, particularly at the southern end just west of Top Pond. The area was also used initially as temporary storage land for trees and shrubs moved out of other areas and some of those are still in situ.
Full details of the plants can be found in the North Garden plant list and the context of this area within the garden can be found on the Plan and Areas page.
