From the ground up - planting my dream garden

Vintage plant and gardening flatlay - photography | Supergolden Bakes

Here’s something you probably don’t know about me. Before food blogging took over my life, I was really into gardening. The gardening bug bit when we bought our first flat which came with an absolutely enormous garden. Suddenly I found myself with a beautiful blank canvas and, armed with a boatload of gardening books, the enthusiasm of a total amateur and lots of free time, I planted with absolute abandon. Sadly, we sold the flat after two years, so I never got the chance to see the plants grow and flourish properly.

We upgraded to a three-bedroom house – which also happened to be falling apart (only reason we could afford it). Instead of gardening, all of our energy was focused on fixing up the house. And instead of an absolutely enormous garden, we were now faced with a relatively tiny space at the back, only accessible through a side door from the kitchen. At least, we assumed it was tiny – we couldn’t see much through the overgrown wilderness. It was so dense and unkempt that we discovered a bicycle rusting beneath the grass, weeds and mass of brambles that we eventually cleared away.

We made an effort to take control once the jungle had been cleared. A lawn was planted and I chose a multitude of unusual shrubs from London’s Columbia Road Flower Market to populate the empty beds. But unlike my previous garden, which was large enough to house an orchard, the new space was small and cursed with clay soil. After ten years, my untended shrubs (spot the toddler below among them) had grown so big they were fighting each other for space. As for the lawn – it had lost the good fight against the waterlogged soil, overhanging plants, NW aspect and resilient weeds.

From the ground up - planting my dream garden | Supergolden Bakes

Twelve years after we moved in, we eventually had enough funds to transform our kitchen (you can read about the six month renovation saga here). The shoddy door facing our neighbour’s wall was replaced with folding doors that stretched across the entire back wall and afforded a full view of the garden – previously out of sight and out of mind. It was rather a depressing – I knew I had to do something drastic to take control and transform our outdoor space. The lawn clearly had to go and so did most of the plants. I wanted a clean slate, straight lines and a garden I could maintain. The landscapers were called in to pretty much clear everything out – I only kept a handful of the existing plants. And then I was stuck. I didn’t want to make the same expensive mistakes again and so I reached out to the Waitrose Garden for help. To my absolute delight they not only offered their expertise, but also contributed a good number of new plants to my garden makeover project.

The collaboration kicked off with a lengthy phone chat with Chris, Waitrose Garden’s Product Developer. He wisely pointed out that “one of the biggest gardening mistakes is not making a proper gardening plan and proceeding without it” – that would be me then. He advised to set a garden plan for my space to include what plants to grow, how many and where to grow and stick to it. As we discussed my requirements – easy maintenance, child and dog friendly plants, lots of flowers and herbs and smallish budget – Chris actually offered to pop round to take a look up close. I am quite indebted to his dedication, patience and enthusiasm as we spend literally hours browsing plant options on the Waitrose garden website. Cleverly, the plants each come with important information as to whether they prefer sun or shade, soil type, hardiness and eventual height and spread. This is like a horticultural dating website for finding the plants that are just right for your needs. And the selection is absolutely vast – needless to say I wanted to buy absolutely everything. It’s just as well that I had a small budget and Chris to guide me.

After endless discussion, we realised that the bed on the right, which enjoys the lion’s share of the sunshine, should house my overgrown olive tree, which had flourished for over a decade in a pot. Originally a tiny little thing the size of a supermarket herb pot, it had grown massive and was begging to take residence in the garden. Once the olive tree was in place, the rest of the plants around it were selected to reflect my Mediterranean roots – lots of lavender, sage, thyme and other plants with silvery foliage, purple or white flowers and a love of sunshine.The bed on the left meanwhile lies mostly in the dark during the winter months. I wanted to add some grasses in the garden and thankfully a few are suitable for semi-shade. Chris suggested that we should go for a ‘hot’ theme on this side – led by the pheasant’s tail grass and its gorgeous red blades. A selection of other grasses, euphorbias and geraniums were added to the shopping cart and a Japanese maple tree was chosen to mirror the olive tree on the other side.

A few days later, Chris dropped off two garden plan sketches for the beds and then the plants arrived, beautifully swaddled in their packaging to keep them in top condition. I felt like a kid on Christmas day – so many beautiful things to unwrap and plant. After some back-breaking digging up of the beds, we positioned the pots as per the garden sketches and got planting. Even though the garden is still in its infancy I am so excited to care for it and see it grow. Every new leaf and flower feels like a little miracle and I have finally found something that’s actually as fulfilling as baking!A huge thanks to Chris and the team at Waitrose Garden for their advice and support. I will be posting a follow up to this post in the spring once my garden has filled out a bit.

Comments

Urvashi Roe says

October 09, 2016 at 2:34 pm

Oh I love this post! I need to go through this exercise. It's been so long since we looked at our garden or allotment.

kitchen princess says

October 06, 2016 at 8:34 am

I had no idea Waitrose did plants. I bet your garden will look fabulous once everything is established.

Emma @ Supper in the Suburbs says

October 05, 2016 at 8:18 pm

How exciting!!!! We move tomorrow and can't wait to watch our own garden grow. Look forward to seeing yours grow too 🙂

nadia says

October 05, 2016 at 4:36 pm

I've never lived in a place that had a garden. I imagine it's so much fun having a blank canvas to bring your ideas to life and create your dream garden! Nature is so beautiful and we should spend as much time as possible outdoors!

Gingey Bites says

October 05, 2016 at 3:04 pm

This is a lovely post! Wow, what a transformation, love it and can't wait to see it once everything is grown and settled in 🙂

Lucy Parissi says

October 05, 2016 at 12:57 pm

Yikes! Never heard of that before but I know those shrubs are very fast growing and hard to control. But lovely to have a big space!

Kate Hackworthy says

October 05, 2016 at 12:54 pm

How exciting to have all that help with your garden! I'm trying to learn how to be more green fingered, but the garden in our new house is large and very mature, so I'm completely overwhelmed. So far all I can do is try to control the chaos, but hopefully next year we'll be able to make it more how we would like. Oddly, a big tree that smelled like pineapple in the summer now smells of sick! It's not a pretty tree, a buddlia I think, so the vomit tree may have to be cut down. It seriously stinks at the moment!

Kavey says

October 04, 2016 at 8:18 pm

What a thrilling experience and how lovely to get such personal help from Chris. Can't wait to see you garden grow!

- Lucy Parissi says
  
  October 05, 2016 at 1:15 pm
  
  He was so incredibly helpful and patient. Really went above and beyond to help me. I never had such a clear plan when gardening before it does make an enormous difference!

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