A Sunny Cottage Garden Border One Year On: What Worked and What Sucked?

A no holds barred account of the reality of gardening. The wins, the totally crap failures, and the unexpected surprises. It’s all part of the fun.

Can you believe it’s not even a year since I created what is the barn garden so far? We were in the middle of the most ridiculous heatwave. It was the worst time possible to be planting, I could feel the gardening glitterati rolling their eyes as I submerged another precious English rose into soil drier than a rice cracker baked in the midday sun.

But, all the stars of the show had already been bought you see, they were waiting in the wings. What was I to do? That’s climate change for you. Weeks earlier it had been bucketing down to a point I thought we might need to build an ark.

Plus, when I know deep down in my soul I have the eyes of many a gardening expert curling their lip and tutting bitchily at my supposed horticultural mediocrity, I can’t help but want to stand proud and say: “fuck you! They’ll be amazing next year!” Life and nature aren’t perfect. Sometimes you have to plant when you really know you shouldn’t.

In late July last year I wrote about how I designed the largest border in our walled garden, I told you about my rather free-hand style of placing plants, and I gave you the full planting list, which was full of hope and promise. But, there was a fair degree of uncertainty, and a massive degree of imposter syndrome, even after 30 years of gardening.

Some of the choices were new to me, I had no idea how they would perform, particularly in a garden I was only just beginning to get to grips with. Why the hell was I writing about it if I didn’t already know, in true expert fashion, what was going to unfold? Well, I’m not an expert for a start, but also isn’t that the best part? Doing things totally relying on hope, a little knowledge, and a deep-seated yearning for things to live and thrive?

So, as we’re all constantly learning, even the best of us, I thought it might be a good idea to revisit each border, its planting list and go through it, telling you what worked and what bombed. Of course, what did well in my garden might not work in yours, depending on soil type and sun direction. But, over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing the four main borders and showing you how they’ve evolved. You can then take from that what you will.

There is also another third of garden left to design, which is closest to the barn. There was just no point in planting anything with builders around. Once the main structure is up and the scaffold has come down, I can start thinking about what I’m going to do there. I know there will be a raised dining area, I’d love there to be a small splash pool (please let that happen), but more than anything, more plants!

A wonderful day was had by all on our first real life get together at Great Dixter on Friday. People came from far and wide, even from overseas. It was so good to put faces to names, cementing friendships made here on H&H through the comments and in our chat. It was also really special to share it with Jo Thompson’s The Gardening Mind readers, widening everyone’s circle of friends. Sorry quite a few of you missed the photo, we did it right at the start, but we will definitely do another meet up next year.

Overall, I’m really happy with the way things have gone in my largest border. We’ve had Tulips in March, April and into May, and then in late spring the herbaceous perennials, shrubs and roses took over. But, there are many summer blooms that are yet to shine and should see us through June, July, August and into September. As long as I keep dead-heading, the roses and many other plants will hopefully still be giving us colour in autumn.

But, there are quite a few things that I did that were beyond rubbish. It’s important that you know what they were.

I’ve learned a lot over the last year, and there’s no point gleaning knowledge if you don’t share it. So, without further ado, here’s how year two is shaping up.

To see the full plant list, find out how what worked and what didn’t and what I’m planning next you need to be a paid member. HOME & HORT is the place where we chat about interiors, gardening, renovation & design, with a little bit of life, love and fun thrown in for good measure. I’m currently renovating a 1500’s barn and walled garden.

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