Notes from a hillside garden: Pt. 1

Actually, it was more of a mountain…just sayin’.

If you read my four-part mini series on weatherboard homes and how we built our own, then you’ll remember that I said I would also write about the garden transformation we did there. Read on to see how we turned a mountainous jungle into a hanging gardens filled with cottage garden favourites and prairie meadow planting. I’ll be giving you handy tips for gardening on a slope as well as some giggles along the way. It’s a three-parter, the first part is free, so strap yourselves in for the ride!

The audio version of this post, read by me, will be available by Wednesday night.

Gardening on a steep slope has its challenges. It takes vision and a great deal of tenacity to manipulate it and create something that is both appealing to the eye, but also practical. The easiest solution is terracing, creating flat tiers or steps within a garden. Each terrace must be easily accessible. Your gardening life will be so much easier once you’ve done this. Saying that, I think we still had 31 steps after we completed the project. We certainly got our daily workout. But, it did create an interesting journey through our steep garden.

Even if you don’t have a sloped plot, there’s still a lot to be learned from the design of such a space. It’s important to have height in a garden, particularly if your outdoor space is completely flat and level. It’s imperative to create drama and a journey in your space, drawing the eye to what could lie beyond a pergola or archway, for example. More than anything else, a garden should be pleasing and be a space that you feel calm and content in. Here’s the low down:

Back in 2013 we sold our lovely Victorian semi-detached home and pretty cottage garden in Gomshall, Surrey, England and moved a few miles down the road to one of the ugliest detached houses you could possibly wish to ever set eyes upon. I’m not joking! Everyone thought we were crazy. But, we knew what both the house and garden could become if we worked hard and had enough vision to see it through. To read all about the house and where my love of weatherboard homes and New England style came from start here.

For those of you that are new here I will describe the garden in its raw state once more. Welcome btw!

First of all, there was absolutely no connection from the house to the garden. For all intents and purposes, there may as well have not been a garden. You could barely see the sky for the amount of overgrown greenery. No one plant could be distinguished from another. Enormous dark green walls of Leylandii surrounded the garden on all sides. It was just a mass of vegetation, literally a living wall wherever you looked.

The mountainous back garden as it was and the steep front garden before work started.

There was a narrow patio directly outside the kitchen, which, if you could find the slippery steps amongst all the overgrowth, lead you to a bank of grass and brambles that dropped steeply back down to the miserly “entertainment zone” below. From there you really needed a climbing harness, ropes and a well-fitting helmet to get to the rest of the garden. Whichever way you turned you would be certain to be impaled by at least one thorny gem of a shrub, exquisitely chosen for your delight and enjoyment. At its peak, this mammoth of a hillside was higher than the very top row of bricks of the chimney stack. I remember a brief discussion about a zip wire. I think Mr. C, my hubby, thought it might be a great way to access the roof for maintenance.

Once I’d mastered my mountaineering technique and made my way to the peak, I was rewarded with the most wonderful views of the North Downs and the surrounding villages. You’d bloody hope it had great views after such a hike! It was worth every slip in my climbing boots, every wrench of my muscles to conquer each crevice! I am, of course, being ridiculous, but it’s funny and it was really steep, I promise!

We faced almost due west, so sunsets were something I was very much looking forward to. I have a thing for sunsets. They are moments to cherish and remind you how very small you are compared to such an expanse of fiery-red sky.

I love a sunrise too, but I’m not a morning person (grumpy does not begin to cover it), plus I’m always too busy posting for Instagram at that time. I am trying to get up and out earlier, as the lovely Jo Thompson from The Gardening Mind recently suggested. I haven’t succeeded yet though. Do check out her wonderful newsletter, by the way. No one knows more about garden design and horticulture than her. Plus, she’s ever so friendly.

We moved into the house in August of that year and after a recce trip to New England for the house build, we began in earnest on the garden. It’s highly unusual to create a garden before remodelling a house. I’m a firm believer in it though, as by the time the house is complete the garden has had time to mature. It’s so very often an afterthought for people and I think that’s a real mistake. It does mean fending off cumbersome builders (more giggles on that in Part 3 of Weatherboard Homes) from your sacred planting, but it’s not impossible.

The house and garden transformed.

For us, it was imperative as, after the house build was complete, it would be no longer possible to get mini diggers into the garden. Not only was the plot steep at the back of the house. There was also a mini mountain at the front too. It would require a new staircase of 14 steps to get to the front door alone! I can feel that you’re reading this and thinking why the hell did they buy such an awkward plot? Well, we like a challenge!

Before we get down and dirty with all the gritty details about the garden reconstruction, I thought it might be a good idea to tell you about my inspiration for the plot first.

I designed the garden myself, as I have with all our gardens (that’s eight so far along with two balconies, a deck and numerous friends’ courtyards and borders). I am not a professional garden designer by any stretch of the imagination and I have absolutely no qualifications in design, or horticulture. However, I have read extensively and I have learned through practice and trial and error over the last 25 years, mainly because I love it. I’m not certain that the way I do things is the correct way, but it works for me and that’s enough.

In 2006 we visited the glorious island of Bali, Indonesia. We stayed in an island paradise and had the most wonderful guide who took us to some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Part of our tour involved us winding around steep hillsides on narrow tracks, as we circumvented our way between rice paddy fields. Each field was terraced and curved by the local farmers to grow their crops and easily irrigate the land. The curves created undulating geometric shapes in the landscape. It was a spectacular, if not surreal sight and I remember thinking to myself that one day it would be fun to create a garden using the technique. I wouldn’t be going so far as to plant rice crops, but you get the idea.

Rice paddy fields in Bali and our own curved terraced garden.

With such a steep slope in our garden, it was going to take some extensive planning to create these meandering walls. I wanted sexy curves that felt like there was no beginning or end. I had this idea that some of the planting could spill over these curved walls almost like a hanging gardens of Babylon, but here in jolly old England.

Mixed with all of that, I wanted to link the garden to the house with a little of the same language. That meant white balustrade, a sun deck and white arches covered in roses to lead you on through your garden journey. It’s a lot for one design. So, other than the curved raised beds, the planting would not be influenced by the east, but firmly set in old and New England.

The planting scheme would be a heady mix of blues, whites, silver and a dash of cerise thrown in for good measure. The style would be a concoction of cottage garden joy and prairie meadow tranquility, containing such gems as Lychnis Coronaria, which is hot pink, Perovskia, Calamagrostis Karl Foerster, Agapanthus, Sea Holly, Stachys, Leucanthemums and Echinacea. The plants would be repeated in different borders to create harmony and cohesion.

But, as this wasn’t a show garden and as Mr. C has very different taste when it comes to plants, there would also be an area for jungle plants, a shady zone, clouds of box balls and even a British wild flower meadow in the field beyond. All of that will be revealed and discussed in part 2 and 3.

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The house was unusual in that the ground level at the front was actually a walk-out basement. There were awkward steps up to the front door, which was effectively first floor. Either side of the steps were raised flower beds. In order to get the mini diggers in to the back garden, these borders had to be flattened to create easy access. That’s an important point. In order to manifest something beautiful in a garden, you often have to make it look very ugly first. It’s something that new neighbours don’t understand. All they see is the people next door destroying a garden. It doesn’t matter how many times you try to explain things. It’s not until all the work is complete that they see your vision and hopefully make friends with you again.

Various stages of destruction

The entire plot was to be ripped to shreds. There was very little in the way of specimen trees and shrubs and either way, the diggers would destroy almost all of it. The first thing we did was employ a great tree surgeon. He and his helpers were at the house for two days. On the first day, every single tree and shrub from the front garden was removed apart from a beautiful Himalayan Ash. I loved that tree. There was a huge ten foot deep by 12 foot high laurel hedge (not the pretty Portuguese variety, I’m talking the thick rubbery kind!) that ran along the front of the property. Be gone with you I say! We unearthed a second driveway entrance, slightly further up the hill, which we would eventually use.

It would allow us to close up the lower entrance and then, in place of the hedge, we would build a metre high retaining wall and raised bed. It would eventually be filled with Jacquemontii Snowqueen, Allium Purple Sensation, Astrantia Major Ruby Cloud and Digitalis Alba. It would allow us to deposit a huge amount of the soil excavated from the back garden. This kind of thing is worth thinking about as soil removal is extortionately expensive. At the time, it was about £350 per lorry load. I dread to think what it costs now!

The new driveway before major replanting. Take a look at the original driveway above. Notice the entrance was much lower down. All the soil from the back garden went there!

I sound rather blasé about all the devastation, don’t I? I promise it was all worth it and just so you know, we planted more trees and shrubs than we tore down. We chose mature specimens from specialist tree nurseries, filling the plot with colourful maples, Liquidambar and luscious pines. Within two years the entire garden looked like it had been there for decades. There was one big difference: you could see an expanse of blue sky and you didn’t need hiking boots!

On the second day God created the sky! The impenetrable Leylandii walls were removed from the back garden. I remember being so thrilled to bits to be able to see clouds. All of a sudden we had this huge expanse of open space and it was blue above us instead of dark green! I knew we’d made the right decision. It was, however, like a tornado had ripped through the Surrey Hills. All vegetation bar a few special trees was flattened. I remember watching the neighbours walking passed in disbelief. Those poor people! Fortunately, it wasn’t that long before beauty would return.

Ooh, I do love leaving you on a cliff-hanger! Part two is next Sunday. Please do leave a comment if you can. I love our Sunday morning chats!