01460 391503
Simon Land Gardens
Maintain Develop Inspire
078 861 17072
Walled Garden Restoration
Frequency of Visits: 3 phases
Charges: Fixed price quotation
Basic Brief: Restoring neglected walled garden & installation of new planting scheme
Mr D contacted Simon Land Gardens in February 2016 after moving to a new property in the area of Montacute, Somerset. Upon visiting the property for the first time I was met with a bit of a jungle. There were a mix of overgrown shrubs and trees, formal box hedges out of shape, with the borders running wild. Looking past that however, it was immediately abundant that this was once a well thought out and nicely designed garden. There were 3 specimen magnolias of varying sizes, formal hedges of box and hornbeam, as well as a very old wisteria.
My initial brief was simply to try and reclaim some order out of the neglect. This involved heavy duty weeding of borders, renovation pruning of some shrubs, removal of dead planting, & re shaping hedges
For a number of months after my initial works, the client was busy in the garden by continuing to work on the borders himself as we began to see what grew throughout the year. He also had the previously overgrown pathways re-laid with lovely fresh chipping and one tree removed which had died during the year. During the autumn I was invited back to work on the next phase of renovation works.
By this time I could see exactly what was growing in the garden, and undertook a project of dividing, transplanting, and removal of planting around the garden as we started to plan ahead the next phase of development
We removed a lot, but not all, crocosmia from many of the borders, took out an old lavender hedge, transplanted a number of specimen ferns and hellebores....generally had a good reorganise. This allowed me to see what space we had for new planting, which was phase 3 of this plan.
Major replanting took place in December 2016. An additional 100 new mainly herbaceous plants were added, with a number of carefully chosen shrubs. Careful attention to flowering times of the new planting was considered, making sure the client has colour from spring to autumn with the herbaceous planting. We also included two specimen small trees into the far boundary of the garden to provide some summer screening of the neighbouring property. The trees chosen were Cornus 'Cloud Nine', a rare spring flowering cornus with a maximum growth of 2.5m, and also a Japanese Acer called 'Skeeters Broom' which is a more upright form of Japanese Acer. Both these trees were chosen for their limit final height and spread, as well as their aesthetic beauty.
Can't wait to see the garden develop this year!