Cormaic's Garden

Garden History

We moved to this house, about 6 miles from Warrington in North Cheshire, UK, in the winter of 1991, having 'upgraded' from a 2-up 2-down terraced house near Wigan. The first 2 or 3 months were spent decorating and setting up the interior of the house to our liking, but as Spring 1992 began, my attentions turned to the back garden.
The rear garden is approximately 7.5m wide and 8.5m long and is south facing, which means the garden gets the sun all day, but the lower half of the garden is shaded by a large Oak that grows on the embankment of the disused railway cutting over the fence at the southern end of the garden. In high summer, the shade at midday covers the lower third of the plot, and in midwinter, the shade extends right up to the house. I have considered having the Oak tree trimmed by the owner of the land, as many of my neighbours have done over the years, and this coming season will see it reduced by two-thirds.

Garden Layout The previous occupants of the house had kept dogs and cared little for the garden. The entire plot was covered with crazy paving that had had neat cement brushed over the surface as an attempt at jointing. The finished effect was a glaring white, and as if that wasn't bad enough, the paving was only 25mm below the dpc of the house.
My first task was to rip up all the crazy paving, organise a skip and get shut of it. As I lifted the crazy paving, I discovered that it had been laid on top of.....more crazy paving, which in turn had been laid on another layer of crazy paving. I had to remove all 3 layers to get down to what passed as 'soil', but was actually a mixture of builders rubble, sand, cinders and soil.
This is my first plan for the garden, showing the basic layout that I wanted,
to create a family garden with plenty of space for young kids to play safely.

I excavated 3 builders' skips of rubble and 'soil' and dropped the level of the garden by approximately 300mm. The first priority was a path to allow the washing line to be used without having to wear wellies! I constructed a flag and brick patio area, the same shape as the patio is today, and a block paved path, 800mm wide leading up the garden. I installed a shed base, and sunk a manhole chamber section in to act as a sand-pit for my small children.

I imported top-soil from various sites that I worked on over the next few months and created the kitchen window bed and the patio bed. The rest of the garden was turfed, to allow the kids to play safely during the summer. The beds were planted with a few perennials from my Dad's garden, supplemented with a handful of plants from a local garden centre. I also planted what I refer to as my 'Grandad's Rose', an unknown pink, highly fragrant, floribunda rose that had graced my Grandfather's garden before he passed away. Other plants were added as I acquired them from private residences where we installed new driveways over what had been garden. The Garden in 1992
The garden after the first overhaul,
with a very young Pester Girl playing outside
her tent on the lawn.

Any attempts to improve the garden were futile as long as the kids were small, and priority was given to ensuring a safe play area for them and their friends, with slide and swing and the sand-pit. The kids grew, as kids do, and they used the garden less with each passing summer. By 1995, my younger daughter turned 5 and the play equipment had become too small for her, and was proving a big attraction to her brother, Slug Boy, and his dodgy mates. I dismantled the swing and slide, and re-turfed the lawn.

The Patio Flower Bed in 1992
This is the first of the flower beds I created,
with a small terraced area at the rear
for the 'Bill and Ben' flowerpots. By 1996, the shade from the Oak had all but killed off the turf at that end of the garden, and so I converted the worst-affected patch to a rockery, with some quarried limestone boulders I acquired from work. The kids hardly played in the garden at all by then, so more attention was paid to planting the rockery and the two flower beds. The fence and trellis on the western edge of the garden were planted with different ivies to scamble up and over the trellis to screen off the 'compound' which is used to store tools and materials for use in the business.

An accident in January 1997 left me unable to work, and I have spent the intervening years improving and extending the planting in the garden, as best as I could with my injuries. The patio and paths were relaid, in 1997, using clay paviors and clay cobbles, for their rich tones, and the redundant sand-pit was converted to a water cascade. The planting beds were extended along the eastern fence, and the two main flower beds completely revamped, with new and vastly superior top-soil.

By 1998, I'd completed the extension of the eastern flower bed, and created a new bed along the western fence, where the ivies have now almost covered the trellis work. 1999 has seen larger changes, with the removal of the shed, followed by the installation of Mrs Taz's Pond and a complete 'makeover' of what had been an empty corner. The Spring of 2000 will see the creation of new planting beds as I take up even more lawn and give a permanent home to my burgeoning collection of grasses and sedges.
The Garden in 1996
View of the garden from my study taken in 1996.
The rockery was created that summer
and rapidly established itself.

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Garden History

We moved to this house, about 6 miles from Warrington in North Cheshire, UK, in the winter of 1991, having 'upgraded' from a 2-up 2-down terraced house near Wigan. The first 2 or 3 months were spent decorating and setting up the interior of the house to our liking, but as Spring 1992 began, my attentions turned to the back garden. The rear garden is approximately 7.5m wide and 8.5m long and is south facing, which means the garden gets the sun all day, but the lower half of the garden is shaded by a large Oak that grows on the embankment of the disused railway cutting over the fence at the southern end of the garden. In high summer, the shade at midday covers the lower third of the plot, and in midwinter, the shade extends right up to the house. I have considered having the Oak tree trimmed by the owner of the land, as many of my neighbours have done over the years, and this coming season will see it reduced by two-thirds.
	The previous occupants of the house had kept dogs and cared little for the garden. The entire plot was covered with crazy paving that had had neat cement brushed over the surface as an attempt at jointing. The finished effect was a glaring white, and as if that wasn't bad enough, the paving was only 25mm below the dpc of the house. My first task was to rip up all the crazy paving, organise a skip and get shut of it. As I lifted the crazy paving, I discovered that it had been laid on top of.....more crazy paving, which in turn had been laid on another layer of crazy paving. I had to remove all 3 layers to get down to what passed as 'soil', but was actually a mixture of builders rubble, sand, cinders and soil. This is my first plan for the garden, showing the basic layout that I wanted, to create a family garden with plenty of space for young kids to play safely.
I excavated 3 builders' skips of rubble and 'soil' and dropped the level of the garden by approximately 300mm. The first priority was a path to allow the washing line to be used without having to wear wellies! I constructed a flag and brick patio area, the same shape as the patio is today, and a block paved path, 800mm wide leading up the garden. I installed a shed base, and sunk a manhole chamber section in to act as a sand-pit for my small children.
I imported top-soil from various sites that I worked on over the next few months and created the kitchen window bed and the patio bed. The rest of the garden was turfed, to allow the kids to play safely during the summer. The beds were planted with a few perennials from my Dad's garden, supplemented with a handful of plants from a local garden centre. I also planted what I refer to as my 'Grandad's Rose', an unknown pink, highly fragrant, floribunda rose that had graced my Grandfather's garden before he passed away. Other plants were added as I acquired them from private residences where we installed new driveways over what had been garden.	The garden after the first overhaul, with a very young Pester Girl playing outside her tent on the lawn.
Any attempts to improve the garden were futile as long as the kids were small, and priority was given to ensuring a safe play area for them and their friends, with slide and swing and the sand-pit. The kids grew, as kids do, and they used the garden less with each passing summer. By 1995, my younger daughter turned 5 and the play equipment had become too small for her, and was proving a big attraction to her brother, Slug Boy, and his dodgy mates. I dismantled the swing and slide, and re-turfed the lawn.
This is the first of the flower beds I created, with a small terraced area at the rear for the 'Bill and Ben' flowerpots.	By 1996, the shade from the Oak had all but killed off the turf at that end of the garden, and so I converted the worst-affected patch to a rockery, with some quarried limestone boulders I acquired from work. The kids hardly played in the garden at all by then, so more attention was paid to planting the rockery and the two flower beds. The fence and trellis on the western edge of the garden were planted with different ivies to scamble up and over the trellis to screen off the 'compound' which is used to store tools and materials for use in the business.
An accident in January 1997 left me unable to work, and I have spent the intervening years improving and extending the planting in the garden, as best as I could with my injuries. The patio and paths were relaid, in 1997, using clay paviors and clay cobbles, for their rich tones, and the redundant sand-pit was converted to a water cascade. The planting beds were extended along the eastern fence, and the two main flower beds completely revamped, with new and vastly superior top-soil.
By 1998, I'd completed the extension of the eastern flower bed, and created a new bed along the western fence, where the ivies have now almost covered the trellis work. 1999 has seen larger changes, with the removal of the shed, followed by the installation of Mrs Taz's Pond and a complete 'makeover' of what had been an empty corner. The Spring of 2000 will see the creation of new planting beds as I take up even more lawn and give a permanent home to my burgeoning collection of grasses and sedges.	View of the garden from my study taken in 1996. The rockery was created that summer and rapidly established itself.