I have been working in a client’s garden high up in Waltham Abbey overlooking the Essex countryside. One of my current projects includes breaking into the straight lines imposed by the garden’s lawn and concrete paths by introducing a jaunty curve into the bed. This new and improved shape will help to soften the edges and allow for the planting scheme to fall into the space. Using a combination of perennial herbaceous and evergreen shrubs with ground cover plants to spill onto the concrete to help hide harsh lines.

This is a beautiful garden with stacks of potential. With a very hot and sunny southerly aspect the garden provides the opportunity to plant appropriately placed drought tolerant plants as well as cottage garden classics. Included in the planting scheme is Photinia ‘Red Robin’ which will provide a blaze of red leaf colour on new growth right through spring until summer has passed and with beautifully fuzzy white flower-heads reminiscent of white lilacs, but fuller, they really are fantastic plants. The evergreen and colour qualities will be placed in a prized location to create a partition between different areas of the garden to great effect.

In the newly created bed I have planted a Victoria Plum Tree which will thrive is this location, despite the soil having been hidden beneath lawn for many years, with the addition of organic compost and manure this soil should soon come back to life and give the plum tree all it needs. I always advise clients to feed their plants especially during spring when they are putting on stacks of growth after a cold and miserable winter. For this plant wait until autumn and then give it a general purpose fertilizer to work through into the roots during the winter and spring. As a companion plant I have relocated a Sambucas nigra as a bed fellow and together they look stunning.

I will publish more photos as this area of the garden develops over time. For now, we wait for those roots to go down into the earth to find the nutrients and stability they will need to thrive.

If you would like to talk with me about a new planting scheme in your garden, please do feel free to get in touch, my email is judi@judithegardener.co.uk. For gardening maintenance enquiries (North-East London, Essex, Hertfordshire and Enfield) please telephone 07818 005773. Always happy to answer gardening questions if I can or steer you towards resources. Happy gardening!