Planning a garden

Hi,

I’m moving house, and we’re fixing up the house we’re moving to in Oxfordshire, UK now to move in in December. The front and back gardens are about 10m x 16m each; back garden NW facing, front garden SE facing. (Current Google maps image attached, but back garden size will shrink by 3m to an extension).

As you may or may not be able to interpret by the sketches below, the back garden we’re thinking of as a grassy play area for our young child, existing apple trees, planting out a bay tree that we currently have in a pot, patio, shed and some kitchen herbs.

Front garden there’ll be a path down the middle to our front porch, a single parking space in the front (we’re a one car household and there’s plenty of spaces for guests etc in the street), a small space for bins and then flower beds or maybe just raspberry bushes, mint etc between the parking space and the house, and four 4x2m raised beds on the other side of the path to the front of the house that I’m planning to use for growing veg, with a pre-existing smallish coniferous tree behind them that I’m planning to grow some kind of flower up (maybe a rambling rose).

This is the first garden I’ve properly planned, so I may well be being daft here; I’ve previously had an allotment for about 2 years and a small container garden for about 4 years but that’s all my experience.

Given my wife and I both work, and additionally hayfever limits how much gardening she can do, we’d be looking to keep this low maintenance if possible.

Question one: would going for perennials in the raised beds be significantly lower maintenance than crop rotating with annuals?

Question two: is there anything in this plan that strikes you as a particular bad idea?

Patrick Woodburn wrote:Hi,

I’m moving house, and we’re fixing up the house we’re moving to in Oxfordshire, UK now to move in in December. The front and back gardens are about 10m x 16m each; back garden NW facing, front garden SE facing. (Current Google maps image attached, but back garden size will shrink by 3m to an extension).

As you may or may not be able to interpret by the sketches below, the back garden we’re thinking of as a grassy play area for our young child, existing apple trees, planting out a bay tree that we currently have in a pot, patio, shed and some kitchen herbs.

Front garden there’ll be a path down the middle to our front porch, a single parking space in the front (we’re a one car household and there’s plenty of spaces for guests etc in the street), a small space for bins and then flower beds or maybe just raspberry bushes, mint etc between the parking space and the house, and four 4x2m raised beds on the other side of the path to the front of the house that I’m planning to use for growing veg, with a pre-existing smallish coniferous tree behind them that I’m planning to grow some kind of flower up (maybe a rambling rose).

This is the first garden I’ve properly planned, so I may well be being daft here; I’ve previously had an allotment for about 2 years and a small container garden for about 4 years but that’s all my experience.

Given my wife and I both work, and additionally hayfever limits how much gardening she can do, we’d be looking to keep this low maintenance if possible.

Question one: would going for perennials in the raised beds be significantly lower maintenance than crop rotating with annuals?

Question two: is there anything in this plan that strikes you as a particular bad idea?

Sounds beautiful. I would say think twice about planting raspberries up against the house. They are pretty aggressive.

Bethany Brown wrote:


Sounds beautiful. I would say think twice about planting raspberries up against the house. They are pretty aggressive.

Thank you! I need to work out what needs to be right up against the house. I was thinking of having a small raised bed of flowers between house and raspberries (as shown in the sketch, plus small trees that I’m considering but may put off installing initially), but in the bnb plan I’ve made the porch would be pretty unprotected… something to think about

Congratulations on your new home Patrick - Oxfordshire was my childhood home. I hope all is going well - I missed your posts earlier, sorry about that.
I love your garden. Nice to see food growing in the front garden, like a proper cottage garden. Any thoughts about what you will edge your raised beds with? They can be quite ornamental. Annuals can be a lot of work, but you are used to an allotment and having the veg on site will save you time commuting. Are you continuing with the allotment? I would try out some perennials as well. If you can make sure you like them and will use them before committing. Some give a yield most of the year and others have a very short season. I can recommend scorzonera as a staple 'green' it has a very pleasant flavour. My kale is very productive (although not so pretty perhaps). Rhubarb of course is reliable given a rich, cool position, and soft fruit can make very cost effective use of space (price up the cost of organic raspberries if you can get them!). Drop me a note later in the year - I usually have some interesting seeds/plants I can post down.
Some thoughts, if they are still of use.
Do you get a nice amount of sun in the afternoon/evening on the patio in the back garden? That will be a nice place to sit out and have family meals perhaps.
Have you planned in some water butts on the gutter downpipes? I imagine that they would come in useful these days. You can rig two or three together with syphon tubing to increase the volume of water fairly easily.
I like the coolframe between the door and the car - it will get attention on your daily commute. I'd be inclined to put it closer to the door/water source so you can pop out in your slippers and adjust the lid/water in there before breakfast in the summer/weekends too.
Raspberries like a cool root run. My suspicion is that they would prefer it in the back garden rather than the front. Do you back onto fields there? Maybe an edible hedge there would be nice. They do tend to spread, but mowing keeps them in check fairly well.

Hi Patrick,
This looks like you have given some good thought to this. My suggestions would be to go slow, and start small. Plan everything, but do it in stages and make sure you can keep up with what you have. I am a really good example of planning too big, and then things get overwhelmed.

Mulch is your friend. If you can keep a good mulch like woodchips or something, it will reduce the weed pressure and reduce the need for watering. Both of those things will save you time. Also, look into automated irrigation. I like the mechanical timers that connect to the hose. Just set it for say 15 minutes... and it will turn off automatically when the time is up. Make round edges on your raised beds... or at least something coming out the bottom to form an "L" shape. This will let you mow right up to it and save time weed whacking. Having a large curved garden bed, with lots of mulch, that your mower can follow the lines of... will save you a lot of time. Consider connecting smaller gardens together, to reduce the area to mow and to reduce the amount of stuff you have to go around.