The Terraced Garden

While the lawn and drive were being made I had to work as a labourer with Walter and the garden boy, but when they were finished I was at last permitted to go off and amuse myself in what was to be my part of the garden, the flower beds. I had long been considering what should be done with the ground on the west of the house. This was on a higher level than the rest and sloped up to a small orchard. We were lucky that our garden was on different levels. A garden that is completely flat is difficult to make interesting. We all know gardens that start as a field and finish as a field, no matter what the owners do in the way of trouble and expense. The kindest thing fate can do to you is to give you a garden that slopes away from the house. The upward slope is more difficult to deal with as great care has to be taken that it does not become top heavy.

When we bought the house this part of the garden rose sharply to the orchard without path or form. The speculator who sold the house to us had put in a few miserable gooseberry bushes, but they were choked with couch grass. In fact, it was nothing but a wilderness and looked the most uninspiring material for a garden.

Walter had no particular views about what should be done here. He agreed that I could have it for flowers and left it at that. The work of the garden had divided itself unconsciously. Walter took over the care of the grass, paths, walls and hedges and left the flowers (and most of his clearing up) to ale.

It was getting towards winter when I started. I studied the ground for days on end, looked at it from every angle, drew plans on paper and, by degrees, ideas took shape.

The first thing to do was to make a path up to the orchard, and this I decided must be slightly curving. The lay-out was irregular so we couldn’t have anything too formal, and my idea was to have something simple and cottagey to go with the long low house.

To get the first level I made low, stone steps, with a fairly high wall to support the earth. On this level I made very wide paths to give the feeling of space. They were gravelled in Walter’s day but since then I have paved them, and now the effect is of a gracious terrace.

I decided to make the garden on each side of the path a series of terraces, each terrace supported by a low wall, in which I planned to grow rock plants. Paths were to be made between the terraces.

I didn’t realize at the time that I was setting myself the hardest task any gardener could have. Everyone knows that the easiest border to arrange is one against a wall or hedge. A double border which must be attractive from both sides is difficult, but what I was trying to do was to make a series of borders, each of which must look well from four angles and must also combine with the borders in front and behind. I had three terraces on the left, and three on the right, but on this side I had to dovetail in a fourth, triangular, bed to fill up the space.

We all know the saying about fools. When I think of it now I wonder how I had the hardihood to attempt such an ambitious scheme. I had never done any gardening before we went to Somerset and had certainly never even thought about garden design. It might have been the most abysmal failure, but I didn’t think about that. My only thought was to get the project under way before Walter took an interest in what I was doing and complicated matters with too much criticism and advice.

We had a very early fall of snow that year and I can remember walking out my plan in the snow. Walter was a fair weather gardener and I knew he’d busy himself with indoor jobs while the weather was bad and leave me to my own devices.

First of all I dug out trenches and made my low dry stone walls in them. We had a liberal supply of stones and I was able to choose fairly even pieces and made quite presentable little walls.

After the walls were done I dug out the earth in front of them to make paths between the terraced beds. It was then that Walter made an appearance and was quite horrified at what he saw. ‘Why on earth are you making canyons?’ I explained that they were the paths and begged him to be patient. The weather was still bad and he was full of indoor schemes so he left me to the mud and chaos.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
The Terraced Garden

• We Made Mistakes
• The Water Garden
• Hedges continue...
• The Value of Evergreens
• We Made Mistakes continue...
• Garden Tedious Harvesting Pick Early and Pick Often part 4
• We made a Garden: Planting
• Hedges
• The Biggest Mistake is over Feeding Plants
• Paths and Patios