Our "Orchard" Transformation Wonder - 2010
10 comments
We started work on a piece of waste ground last April / May which used to be very overgrown & full of rubbish when we moved here the previous year….
Mr CG added 30 tonnes of rough topsoil….
And spent a lot of hours digging & levelling….
By mid May ’09 things were starting to look a lot better….
We planted lots of fruit trees – including nectarine, cherry, plum & several different kinds of apple….
And even though it was their 1st year, we were chuffed to see 2 apples had grown….
As the main feature of “The Orchard” we planted up a big island with young herbaceous plants of dalphinium, hostas, lupins, hollyhocks & foxgloves….
Although we got some flowering last year, the plants were only a couple of months old so there was no “big” show when they did flower. We just had to hope they survived the winter.
Unfortunately winter was very hard with temperatures reaching -17 & despite planting over 100 foxgloves, only 2 survived & all the hollyhocks died out.
This year we replaced all the casualties with more plants (having grown them from seed in late summer last year). In addition we planted lilies, astibile, verbena, phlox and a lot of plants that we don’t know the names of.
And this year …….. yee ha ……..what a transformation….
The dalphiniums wintered really well, producing lots of plants over 7 & 8ft & a great variety of colours
We’ve uploaded some more individual pics of our Dalphiniums into “our photos”. Sorry I don’t know the names of any of them but perhaps fellow GoY’s will.
And the other plants….
The lupins also established themselves well & we’ve planted another couple of dozen into the bed to mature next year ….
The lilies were new bulbs this year so we’re hoping the mice don’t eat them this winter….and hostas are very hardy anyway….
Finally, there should be a great crop of apples this year as plenty have survived the rain & strong winds from the beginning of the month….
Best wishes
Mr & Mrs CG
24 Jul, 2010
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Comments
glad to see the fruits of your labours :o)
a job well done.
24 Jul, 2010
WOW.....Well done both of you!
24 Jul, 2010
magnificant - what a display, you must be really pleased.
24 Jul, 2010
looks really lovely...
24 Jul, 2010
Super! You've got an orchard to be proud of - I'm sure it'll give you years of pleasure - and fruit! :D
24 Jul, 2010
fantastic transformation, well done the two of you, you're plants are looking lovely :-)
25 Jul, 2010
You've a lovely garden, great pictures too :-)
25 Jul, 2010
What a magnificent transformation. The first pictures looked very daunting but you had a vision and a plan waiting in your minds which would have scared the hell out of other mortals ( me especially!) A huge pat on the back and all the best for your future plans. I love the Delphiniums and the Lupins, such beautiful colours.
25 Jul, 2010
Thanks to everyone for their comments. There's a lot of flowers to bloom yet so hopefully we'll get a good show of colours for a while. The ground when we originally started was full of comfry, nettles & weeds - the 1st pictures show it after a lot of spraying to kill everything down :o)
25 Jul, 2010
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What an acheivement Mr.& Mrs.CG. Congratulations, that is lovely.
24 Jul, 2010