How it started / how it’s going (part 2)

And so, the back garden! The scale drawing:

The back garden is north-facing, and to the north there’s another three-storey block of flats, so it doesn’t get a huge amount of sun. The sunniest time is the morning, when it gets sun from the east; to the west, there are higher blocks of flats and two trees, so you don’t get much afternoon sun.

In the north-west corner is a mature ash tree, and next to the western fence some sort of salix/willow (really ought to identify that at some point). For that reason, spring flowers do really well here – they can cope with the summer shade, when the trees are in leaf; summer flowers have to cope with partial shade. Here are the photos when I viewed the flat in 2014:

I got rid of the red mini-shed (my mum uses it as a wood store now) and dug over the bed on the eastern side for flowers (or rather, I paid a friend to do the heavy digging). My idea was that the eastern bed would be for flowers and the other side would be a lawn, with lots of containers on the paved bits. I decided early on to keep the palette in the back to mostly white, with a bit of blue, to contrast with the front garden where there’s lots of red and purple and orange. Also, I painted the fence blue. September 2015:

April 2016 (second photo, you can see the rose I planted, Variegata di Bologna. It’s stunningly beautiful, white flowers splashed with crimson):

Looking really pretty in May 2016 (must plant more foxgloves!):

Still not sure why I have so many more photos from 2016 than any other year. June 2016, pictures pf the containers on the paved side:

Looking a bit rough in December 2016 (pretty terrible photo, but you can see where a couple of fence panels blew down and the council came round and replaced them):

October 2018. I can’t remember when I planted that Japanese Anemone (‘Honorine de Jobert’) but it is marvellous: it blooms from August until the first frost, and I’ve split it and spread its offspring around the garden:

In 2019 I dug up and moved some of the shrubs around: below you can see the white lilac, towards the right, and centre, a white ceanothus. Looking a bit messy in January 2020:

Look how lush in May 2021, with the white lilac blooming:

During the pandemic I bought a sunlounger which, to be honest, I never lounge on. Perhaps because it’s under the trees so in shade most of the time, or more likely because whenever I sit down in my garden for more than five minutes I notice something that needs cutting back or pulling up or tying in. I liked the solar lights, though, but they weren’t very expensive and have since broken. A mistake. June 2021:

And my birthday present from my parents in 2021 was a bird feeding station:

I had the table on the round patio, under the trees, but it worked much better when I moved it closer to the house, outside the back door. It catches the morning sun and I used to sit there before a day of working from home and drink my coffee. Yes, that’s a campaign board from the 2017 election. May 2022:

Also from May 2022. I LOVE this set of shelves, which I found on the street and painted for my pelargoniums. Most of the pelargoniums, sadly, died in the cold snap last winter.