Back Patio Plan

Finally I managed to map another part of the garden - the back patio immediately adjacent to the house. This is the part of the garden where I kept many of the mature shrubs, so I am unable to precisely identify them.
This part of the garden is visible from the kitchen as well as the dining room.
The entrance to the garden is on the left side marked with an arrow. There is a redwood deck just outside the house. We built a stone patio in the center of the area where we keep our table and chairs in summer, the patio is surrounded by gravel.

I have been unable to post a larger image, so if you are interested in the planting details please e-mail me at jo@acercorner.com for a more legible version.

(Not) Resting on the Laurels

Since I mentioned laurels in my last post, I already implemented some changes.
You can see in the pictures below there are 3 large ferns in the front garden which have overgrown their space, and hide everything behind them (all 3 have been split from a fern which I found in the garden when we moved in, and I believed for a long time to be dead).









All 3 now moved to new homes. 2 of them in the back garden and the right hand one in the right hand picture further back to the edge of the box.

I filled the other spaces with a selection of smaller ferns and grasses, and realised I now have space for a new acer!



The acer I am after is Acer Palmatum 'Little Princess', which is a small tree with red edged green leaves. I have seen it at garden shows (as large specimen), but so far I was not able to hunt one down. Hopefully my coming visit at Hampton Court flower show, will help.

And, there is another, less planned changed. As you can see in the top picture, there is a wooden seat between the boxes, which provides a good view of the garden (not that I used it that much). Unfortunately the seat was rather uncomfortable.
Last week I finally found the time to visit our local architectural salvage cum antique shop (which is just opposite the garden centre, so really I sould have visited before), and spotted a bench which fits in the small space. Hopeful, I sat on it and it turned out to be comfortable, so now it graces the front garden and gone are the excuses not to sit there ...
(It does need a lick of paint, and we do need to hide the water pipe behind it, but that's no excuse ... )

Open Garden

We had an open garden day on the bank holiday weekend in aid of Iain Rennie. The weather was not too promissing and indeed the day started with pouring rain.

But, while I was showing a lady around wearing my waterproofs (which only come out about once a year) the rain suddenly stopped and it stayed dry until 5PM when we closed.
Since I don't have a close relationship with any powers, I will have to assume this was pure luck. We had very good comments so if you thought we are resting on our laurels, think again, while I was showing visitors around, I identified quite a few changes....

Here are some figures from Acer Corner's resident statistician:

We had 154 counted visitors, there probably were a few more we are not aware of, since we had a bit of an influx after lunch.
We took in £235.5 of which £145.5 (~62%) was for refreshments (most bought their tickets in other gardens), but we think most came to see our garden.

Bedfordshire 4
Berkshire 2
Buckinghamshire 116
Hertfordshire 28
Middlesex 1
Oxfordshire 2
West Sussex 1 (wander how they got here)

Meanwhile you can enjoy a sunny view of the garden (I am trying to establisha camomile lawn around the apple tree)

More gardens will be open for Ian Rennie in the Chiltern area during June and July, you can check them out here