period gardening

[plasticpigeon]

I am trying to make a cottage style garden on my long thin strip of garden out back of my little Edwardian terrace. The previous owner was a keen gardener, and I am really just trying to get the garden back to how it must once have been before it got overgrown. There is lots of oxalis and creeping wild violet around which are both pretty plants but quite rampant. Some people think they are weeks They are not causing trouble at the moment, but at the same time I don't want them to take over. Should I embrace them or pull them out? Any advice for ground cover in a herb garden?

 

[Moo]

Remember the old saying: "a weed is a plant that is in the wrong place", and simply remove the ones you don't want.

How about some pictures, to give us an idea of what you're dealing with?

 

[Moo]

Purely out of interest, I googled "Weed cover in herb garden".
I think you'll find it very fruitful........

 

[tobydog]

We had a large amount of creeping wild violets in our garden when we first moved in. It was on a big south facing bank and had throttled most things in its path. When I renovated the bank I pulled most of it up but knew that I wanted to keep parts of it so it could meander through the existing plants and ramble over an old tree stump. It's in full flower now and adds lovely flashes of colour. If it ever get's ideas above its station, just grab hold of the ends of the wayward shoots and give them a good yank before they root.

I would have thought that good ground cover in a herb garden are herbs. You could always try camomile.

 

[plasticpigeon]

Remember the old saying: "a weed is a plant that is in the wrong place", and simply remove the ones you don't want.

How about some pictures, to give us an idea of what you're dealing with?

I think I will take this approach. People say about jazz that it is all the wrong notes in all the right places, and I consider jazz one of the few things in life that actually lifts my spirits. I think i will be making a jazzy garden: All the wrong plants in all the right places.

 

[davidbrac]

We started to clear our garden, which last had someone really look after it seven years ago. Starting point was to pick all the raspberries that ha fruited and take root all over the place. Since then we have been thinning back everything, and l have been pulling out sycamore roots. We are now waiting to see what comes up this year. So for we are inundated with daffs, snowdrops and the tulips are coming up. It looks as if the place will be covered in bluebells, especially in the scrub land behind us where l have coppiced the ash, hazel, & sycamore.

The next step will be planning a new garden that is more than just rhododendron and lilac trees.

did l mention that l dislike rhododendron its an invasive weed that takes over and lets nothing grow under it

 

[Penners]

People say about jazz that it is all the wrong notes in all the right places

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zHBN45fbo8

You should only grow one type of plant in your garden. The type you like. Nothing else matters.

 

[Moo]

I do hope that, while clearing your garden, you don't have to contend with our problem - broken glass.
Since we've been here we've obeyed the first rule of starting a garden, which is to leave it alone for at least one season and see what comes up. So apart from what we definitely know are weeds we've not disturbed the soil much, but even so every time we look at one of the beds we see the unmistakeable twinkle. So far we've filled two buckets with the stuff.
Now that we've decided what to keep and what to expunge we're going a bit deeper, and the amount of glass (of all shapes and sizes) is phenomenal.
On my allotment the old boys used to scatter broken greenhouse glass to deter slugs, but here most of it seems to be the remains of bottles and glasses. I do hope it's not evidence of uber-riotous parties when our son was a tenant here!

 

[Penners]

I can't remember the age of your London abode, Moo. Is it Georgian? I wonder whether you've discovered a midden. Or the glass too widespread for that?

 

[Moo]

Georgian? On our budget, in SE22 ?
I'm afraid it's standard-issue workman's terraced cottage, like the thousands that were flung up at the turn of the century.
I blame the railways, and Mr Bradshaw*

 

[Moo]

* I'm assuming you've been dipping into Michael Portillo's series on BBC TV

 

[Penners]

No, I'm not a fan of Mr Portaloo. But I am a fan of Victorian houses.

When you say "turn of the century" I assume you mean the proper turn of the century - not that modern, jumped-up one that occurred 14 years ago?

 

[plasticpigeon]

Moo's house and my house are very similar in size and construction. The big difference is location and price.

 

[Moo]

Prices in this neck of the woods have gone mad: for what we paid for our house, we'd only be able to afford an upstairs (no garden) two-bedroom 'conversion' flat now. But prices in Norwich don't seem to have moved much. If we were to sell up now, we could go back and buy a period palace.
(Google 'property for sale in SE22' and you'll see what I mean.)

 

[Penners]

prices in Norwich don't seem to have moved much. If we were to sell up now, we could go back and buy a period palace.

So what are you waiting for?

 

[Moo]

For our children (who are the reason for us moving here) to see the light and move back to rural parts.
Until then, we're enjoying our little shoebox, and the convenience of being fifteen minutes away from them.

 

[Penners]

I knew that really. I just wish you to understand that Norwich misses you (as do the visitors thereto).

 

[jocelyn plummer]

But prices in Norwich don't seem to have

moved much----no they haven't but Burnham Market has!! Oh how I miss it.

Our neck of the woods here in MK 45 is really silly money, with Woburn Street and Church Street houses showing prices almost doubled over the last 5 years .