The gardens at The Old Barn, 2003-2014
When we originally bought The Old Barn, it had been a holiday let and, although having nigh on 2 acres of land, there was only lawn surrounding the house itself and beside it was a field or paddock. No plantings at all. It had been an old field barn with a tree lined beck along one boundary and open views across the surrounding fields to the north. Both my wife and I had demanding jobs, so we only created a couple of planting areas in front of the house at first, and only started building the gardens later.
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In 2003, The Old Barn had no gardens at all, the house being surrounded by featureless grass. This is the adjoining water-logged field full of lank grasses and reeds that we eventually turned into the main gardens.
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In 2004 the first trees were planted: pencil thin saplings of Betula Papyrifera, the 'canoe birch', in the waterlogged field.
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A very elderly Yanmar 3.5 tonne excavator was rescued from extinction to help with the job - and to provide some fun!
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This is the view that encouraged us to take on the house and garden, looking across neighbouring fields over the Solway Firth to Scotland. It also started my wife's painting career.
Remember those pencil thin 'canoe birch' saplings standing in flood water in the photo above? A couple of years later......
In front of the house, the soil was a few inches over rock. All the planting holes were chiselled out by hand.
Seating areas were created around the house and throughout the garden to follow the sun and provide protection from the winds
Looking across the lower part of the main garden from the beck towards the bog garden.