My first garden and its uses

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This was my first proper garden, standing to attention on the right are my two lovely old neighbours, Mr and Mrs Holloway. A friend and I had opened a little pet shop in my road selling animal food and accessories. We both used to take turns there, we weren’t run off our feet, in fact it only lasted a year. I don’t think I was cut out to be a business woman. During my time as a business woman, Mrs Holloways brother (left) cut the lawn and kept it tidy. I had never had such neat edges before (or since):-) I’m afraid the quality of the pics is not very good as I have had to photograph the photograph (technophobe, daren’t attempt to scan) so I apologise. I never bothered with a camera then, so the photo itself is pretty poor, now I love taking pics.

The conifers are Lawson cypress they were in front of my little wild life pool and hid the remains of the old pig sty. My previous garden had been just for children and animals. The old garages were asbestos and once removed gave me more room. It took a few more years, but it eventually became a lovely garden. Unfortunately I have no photos so you’ll just have to take my word for that lol. I used to drag unsuspecting visitors outside and give them the tour:-)

This is a painting and I apologise for the quality , but it gives you some idea of how this part looked when it matured. I can remember most of the plants I had here. On the left foreground in the picture is supposed to be peony bowl of beauty, right foreground was ivy on a low wall to the patio. The red leaves were an acer palmatum and the taller was a lovely red filbert, probably a maxima. Also loads of other shrubs and perennials. At the very back (left behind the lawsons) were variegated leylandii and on the right was a very old laburnum, not too prolific Down the right side were forsythias and lilac mainly.

This is looking down the garden towards Mr Holloways pigeon loft and beyond that a filled in railway line and a small farm which later became a housing estate. In the foreground are Robin, Libby and Phoebe.

Robin again.

I used to breed and show ( I always felt silly showing) toy poodles. I did actually manage to breed a British Champion Who was shown and owned by a friend of mine in Manchester. I called him Teddy, his show name was far longer. this is him in his puppy show suit.

This is my lovely Aphrodite (you can see the resemblance?) She was a silkie. I later bought her a companion from the same breeder, as he had no hens he sold me a cock (Beau Brummel) that he had bought to impregnate his hens, but who he said was not up to the job. He was a lovely chap and not so useless. Aphrodite had a little girl we called Mimi. She was a lot pushier than her mother. unfortunately no pics.

This is Harvey and old Dunkel the cat

Mad dogs!

This was my wonderful Polar she was a standard (largest size), my best ever birthday present. She was almost six when we had her. We were her fourth home, there are some unscrupulous breeders around who breed then sell the mum on to another breeder. She was spending most of her time in a garage! She was a fabulous girl who will never leave me and what a sense of humour she had.

So as you can see, my old garden had many uses…..dog run,…..chicken run…and my run.

• 5 Apr, 2010
• 12 likes

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