The Rouse Garden

Our house sits amongst nearly an acre of land, with an ice cream factory at the back, a public footpath down the north side, a field to the south west and an old folks home and some scrubland to the south east. The house faces south west, so the winds whistle up from the direction of Derby, but we do get wonderful views over the Press Brook towards Crich Stand.

If you click on one of the small pictures on the left, a larger picture (around 40K) will be loaded.

The image on the left gives a general plan of the garden. One day I'll get round to making this a clickable map, but until then......
The subsoil is clay, but we believe most of the garden is fill over mediaeval coal workings and the kitchen garden is much higher than the land alongside, and we believe it is built up on blast furnace slag. Similarly the area immediately in front of the house, we suspect, was heaped up after the house was built.
Much of the rear yard is tarmac (the Clay Cross company had their own tarmac plant in the 1930s) so it is our main potting and working area. There is a little 'garden room' which we use as a potting shed, and we are in the middle of moving the greenhouse, which presently sits, with no glass in it, on the patio.
The kitchen garden was walled when we bought it, but the contractors building a hideous extension to the old peoples' home next door dumped a load of concrete against one wall, which promptly collapsed, and last easter the wall between their garden and ours collapsed and they refuse to rebuild it. The kitchen garden is on quite a steep slope, facing south, and has the remains of old cold frames at the top, but as they are overlooked by a car park we haven't rebuilt them as we think they should be out of stone-throwing distance.
My dad, who is over eighty, comes over every week, and with his help we cleared the kitchen garden, and it is now producing crops for us.
There were existing paths in the garden, but the one that runs down the side of the formal garden seemed to disappear under one end of the beech hedge. The land levelled out here, which seemed strange, as the rest of the garden was on the same slope. I decided to excavate, and after shifting tons of soil, found a couple of gateposts. We had a spare gate, which we had brought with us from Liverpool, and it almost fits the opening! The discovery of this path lead us on to finding a whole system of paths around the orchard.
Here is an 'aerial' view of part of the kitchen garden and the lawn.
The formal garden was overgrown when we bought the house, and we haven't done a lot with it since. There is a patch of lawn, on which sits Tim's climbing frame, a 'unique' weeping ash, and a border containing lots of rose bushes (all red and unscented) and even more brambles, hawthorn and bindweed. At the bottom of the lawn a beech 'hedge' separates the formal garden from Tim's garden and the orchard.
The 'orchard' contained one very old split apple tree, a seedling and dozens of elders when we moved in. I have dug it over several times, and the crop has slowly changed from ivy and nettles to bindweed and nettles. Now we have decided that it should be terraced and I am busy building a retaining wall.
Below the orchard is the meadow. This was separated from the farmer's field by a wooden fence, which the local kids had attempted to burn and was in a very poor state of repair. We have had three goes at planting hedgerow trees along the fence, and although hawthorn won't grow here (despite being prolific elsewhere in the garden) the rosa rugosa seems to thrive.
Up the side of the formal garden, and between it and the public footpath, is a wild area which has long been used as a local tipping ground, rubbish bin and drug taking and bonking area for the local teenagers. We haven't really thought of a good use for this, we would like to take it into our garden, but removing the wall between this area and the formal garden would also remove much of the privacy at the front of the house. We also have problems, which the insurance company are presently investigating, with the wall between the wild area and the public footpath.
Finally, we have built a flowerbed on the drive, as there was an area which wasn't needed for turning and was just filling with weeds. We have also built a flowerbed alongside the drive, but this may have to go if the top of the wall onto the public footpath has to be rebuilt.

As you can tell this is very much a work in progress, and these pages will constantly be updated as things happen.

The sharp-eyed amongst you may have noticed that some of these pictures are blurred. This is because they were taken with a throw-away camera. I shall try and take some better ones now my good camera has been overhauled.

This is a uk.rec.gardening web-ring member site

<< Prev

Random

Next >>

List All

The URG Web Ring
More Info

	The image on the left gives a general plan of the garden. One day I'll get round to making this a clickable map, but until then......
	The subsoil is clay, but we believe most of the garden is fill over mediaeval coal workings and the kitchen garden is much higher than the land alongside, and we believe it is built up on blast furnace slag. Similarly the area immediately in front of the house, we suspect, was heaped up after the house was built.
	Much of the rear yard is tarmac (the Clay Cross company had their own tarmac plant in the 1930s) so it is our main potting and working area. There is a little 'garden room' which we use as a potting shed, and we are in the middle of moving the greenhouse, which presently sits, with no glass in it, on the patio.
	The kitchen garden was walled when we bought it, but the contractors building a hideous extension to the old peoples' home next door dumped a load of concrete against one wall, which promptly collapsed, and last easter the wall between their garden and ours collapsed and they refuse to rebuild it. The kitchen garden is on quite a steep slope, facing south, and has the remains of old cold frames at the top, but as they are overlooked by a car park we haven't rebuilt them as we think they should be out of stone-throwing distance.
	My dad, who is over eighty, comes over every week, and with his help we cleared the kitchen garden, and it is now producing crops for us.
	There were existing paths in the garden, but the one that runs down the side of the formal garden seemed to disappear under one end of the beech hedge. The land levelled out here, which seemed strange, as the rest of the garden was on the same slope. I decided to excavate, and after shifting tons of soil, found a couple of gateposts. We had a spare gate, which we had brought with us from Liverpool, and it almost fits the opening! The discovery of this path lead us on to finding a whole system of paths around the orchard.
	Here is an 'aerial' view of part of the kitchen garden and the lawn.
	The formal garden was overgrown when we bought the house, and we haven't done a lot with it since. There is a patch of lawn, on which sits Tim's climbing frame, a 'unique' weeping ash, and a border containing lots of rose bushes (all red and unscented) and even more brambles, hawthorn and bindweed. At the bottom of the lawn a beech 'hedge' separates the formal garden from Tim's garden and the orchard.
	The 'orchard' contained one very old split apple tree, a seedling and dozens of elders when we moved in. I have dug it over several times, and the crop has slowly changed from ivy and nettles to bindweed and nettles. Now we have decided that it should be terraced and I am busy building a retaining wall.
	Below the orchard is the meadow. This was separated from the farmer's field by a wooden fence, which the local kids had attempted to burn and was in a very poor state of repair. We have had three goes at planting hedgerow trees along the fence, and although hawthorn won't grow here (despite being prolific elsewhere in the garden) the rosa rugosa seems to thrive.
	Up the side of the formal garden, and between it and the public footpath, is a wild area which has long been used as a local tipping ground, rubbish bin and drug taking and bonking area for the local teenagers. We haven't really thought of a good use for this, we would like to take it into our garden, but removing the wall between this area and the formal garden would also remove much of the privacy at the front of the house. We also have problems, which the insurance company are presently investigating, with the wall between the wild area and the public footpath.
	Finally, we have built a flowerbed on the drive, as there was an area which wasn't needed for turning and was just filling with weeds. We have also built a flowerbed alongside the drive, but this may have to go if the top of the wall onto the public footpath has to be rebuilt.