It’s Queen’s Birthday Weekend and I’ve been in the garden three days straight. I fixed up a messy garden, worked a bit on the brickery and swept up a mountain of leaves for the leaf bin. Hopefully, by the time you finish reading the blog, my husband, son and I will have moved a heavy concrete pot/pond from the bottom of the drive to the back garden. My husband injured his hamstring running, my son rolled his ankle in a football trial so lifting and carrying the pot/pond through an obstacle course of planters, gates and steps will be a challenge. If you see a photo of the pot/pond at the bottom of the blog, complete with water and water lily you’ll know we were successful.

I bought, what Dr D.G. Hessayon calls, a ‘Raised Minipond’. It was an impulse buy, although I’ve always wanted one - a pond that is. My dream pond is a lot bigger than a minipond. My dream pond would have a many-tiered fountain and lots of goldfish in every shade of gold, orange and black. The pond would be big and decorated with mosaics. It would be surrounded by a walled courtyard - a cross between a paradise garden and the sort of thing you’d find at a five star hotel somewhere on the equator in the early thirties. My dream courtyard, to be clear, would be very large and quiet. There wouldn’t be the rumble of nearby trucks and busses or car alarms or planes. All you’d hear, apart from the sound of falling water (a gentle trickle rather than a waterfall) would be bees buzzing and birds warbling. And if you really concentrated you’d hear the sound of butterfly wings beating at 110 beats per second (I just made that up).

Just in case you’d asked yourself what a raised minipond was, you’ll be pleased to know I have Dr D. G. Hessayon’s definition to hand. ‘It’s ‘an excellent feature for bringing life and interest to the patio. A raised pond made from bricks or blocks can be constructed, but it is more usual to use a ready-made container such as a half-barrel, sink, fibreglass tank or large plastic trough. Lack of insulation against summer heat and winter frost is the main drawback.’

I wasn’t in the market for a pond but I happened to be at the right place at the right time - at a garden centre when there was a 30% discount on ponds.

I was plant shopping with my sister at the time. She’d given me a plant voucher for my birthday and we thought we’d make a day of looking for plants. She was looking for natives and I was looking for edibles. Then we came across the pond. I’d been eyeing up that very pond for over a year. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Buy it.’ So I did.

I’m getting sidetracked. This blog isn’t about a pond it’s about my orchard rose garden. A garden that’s a bit of a dog’s breakfast, and had literally ‘gone to the dogs’ before I fenced it.

This garden started out as a failed vegetable garden with a pear tree growing in the middle of it. A bit later I planted a few red currant bushes and a ponderosa lemon tree and it became a herb and fruit garden. Last winter it became the over-flow rose garden for all the pink roses and pink salvias. At the moment it’s home to at least 10 old fashioned roses. So that’s how it became the ‘orchard rose garden’, or more precisely - the ‘orchard herb salvia and rose garden’. It’s my least planned garden although I’ve always had a strong feeling of what it ought to be like.

I wanted it to be a smaller version of two quintessential cottage garden styles: the pottager and the orchard. And yet I still want it to function as a beautiful border. Maybe I’m asking too much.

Here are the ‘before’ photos. It’s a mess.

Here are the ‘after’ photos.

I wanted an edible hedgerow but as you can see, I haven’t the space so I planted a line of raspberries. I’m hoping they’ll become a raspberry hedge. I moved a couple of the red currants behind the raspberries and maybe they’ll intermingle. Then I planted a blueberry and a quince tree and 3 geraniums. And because I didn’t have a tall plant with pink flowers I planted Sildacea malviflora Hybrid ‘Rosaly’. I moved my Hybrid Musk rose ‘Felicia’ because she needed more space and was too beautiful to be tucked behind other plants. I moved a pink achillea too and a lavender (one of those big bushy ones), which I grew from a cutting (surreptitiously taken from a public garden). I moved my pineapple sage to a better spot and weeded the whole garden - accidentally pulling up my variegated wallflower at the same time. It’s looking a bit sad and rumpled today. I hope I haven’t killed it.

I removed the 2 griselinias along the back fence. They were too big for the space. I’m going to remove the wire support along the side fence, which I never got around to putting up properly. My side fence is too weak to hold the weight of heavy plants. A number of years ago my neighbours car rolled through it, and while the palings were fixed the post wasn’t and flops about.

Here’s one of my thornless raspberries ‘Clutha’.

I planted a blueberry tree in front of my barrel of mint, behind it I planted a quince tree, Chaenomales ‘Yokuku’ - a semi-evergreen shrub with white flowers in spring, followed by edible fruit. It should grow to 1.2 metres in height and width. I never appreciated, until now, the autumn colouring on the blueberry leaves.

The little black fence is there to keep the dogs off the garden. I’ve constructed a path through the edge of the garden so they have access to theback fence to bark at passersby. I figure if I didn’t do this they’d batter down the black fence, which they could easily do if they tried.

I still haven’t figured out what to do with this badly leaning pear tree. One friend reckoned I need to train it against the fence and another told me to bang in a strong stake in front of it and tie it to it. The birds got all my fruit this year but I don’t mind because I’ve got these stunning leaves.

My Hybrid Musk ‘Felicia’ is still flowering. She’s one of my favourite roses. She’s visible in the front of the photo above.

I have a lot of salvias in my garden. I’ve always thought of them as a background plant, but here’s a salvia that isn’t. It’s become my favourite. Salvia iodantha - spring-green leaves and dark magenta flower spikes. The whole plant glows when the light passes through it. A giant of a plant.

This box of plants arrived a week ago. I ordered them from Marshwood Plants. They’re in surprisingly good condition for being stuck in a box for 11 days. They were couriered from the bottom of the South Island to the bottom of the North Island - a trip that usually takes 2 days tops. Thanks to Covid 19 courier companies have a ridiculous work load. Full credit to Marshwood Gardens - you guys grow tough plants! And just in case you thought I might’ve been paid to say this - I wasn’t and I wouldn’t.

I bought this book for my birthday before lockdown. ‘Cottage Gardens’ by Clair Masset. It arrived the same day as the Marshwood Gardens box of plants. I’m three-quarters through it. My favourite place to read it is in the bath after a day in the garden. It’s the right shape and size to hold above your head. Its hard cover is easy to grip but not so heavy that you’d drop it in the water. It’s a great overview of the ‘cottage garden’ style and the perfect tonic for living in an unsettling unpredictable world. It makes me wish for a bigger section where I could have beehives and chickens and hedges. It’s a feast for the eyes. I especially appreciated the tips about plants and the chance to visit 8 classic cottage gardens. You can’t beat a garden book written by a gardener. Now I have lots of lists: lists of new plants to try out, like Clarkia elegans, larkspur (Consolida ajacis) and Helenium; and lists of cottage garden style staples, like topiary and rustic fences and rustic wooden stakes and hedges.

Here’s the brickery. It’s the brick courtyard in the back garden. The photo above was taken in summer. You can see all the weeds growing between the bricks. Because weeding this area is a nightmare I decided to turn it into a brickery - which is my term for a rockery made out of bricks. I’ve been removing the weeds, bit by bit (usually after a good rainfall) with my hooked weeding wand. I feel like the gardening equivalent of a dentist. I scrape out all the weeds, soil and broken mortar between the bricks and then stuff the cavities with soil and plants. I work on one area at a time and I’m experimenting with a range of plants. I put shade lovers in the shade and sun lovers in the sun. It’s early days. So far the plants I’ve planted have all taken to their spots and haven’t died.

These are some of the plants I’ve planted: dianthus, ajuga, creeping thyme, lawn chamomile, a couple of different succulents and alyssum. I’m surprised I bought the alyssum because I’ve always loathed this plant, probably for its 70s rock garden connotations. My friend Sophie likes alyssum. She has good taste in plants so I’m going to give it a go. What I hope is that these new plants will stop the weeds from growing.

It started raining this afternoon. It was too wet to move the pot/pond so it’s still sitting on the drive. Instead of a photo of my minipond I’m giving you this. Something I came across when I was walking my dogs in the forest this morning.

See you in a fortnight.