Initial Plans

Top Garden

I had an immediate need to make somewhere to keep my 2 motorbikes securely and out of the weather. Behind the old, abandoned outhouse there was an old concrete slab, covered with overgrown ivy. It wasn't very flat but was pretty much the perfect size to put a decent sized timber shed on, which would just take 2 motorbikes. So that was the priority.

After that, I was planning to knock down the abandoned outbuilding. And then in the first summer/autumn I wanted to clear as much of the overgrown weeds and unwanted trees from the top garden as I could and ideally get a lawn seeded to help contain the weeds that had taken over.

Bottom Garden

I didn't really have any big plans for the Bottom Garden in the first year, other than to clear some space so that I could use it to manage any firewood etc that I generated from the Top Garden!

Masterplan 

As an ex-construction person, I couldn't help but start to develop a Masterplan of how I thought things might be developed!

The Top Garden fairly naturally fell into having a patio/amenity area adjacent to the house and a fairly traditional "flower garden" in the rest, with a couple of the apple trees retained, a lawn and flower borders. 

The eastern boundary is a fairly low, very ugly concrete block wall, which gives very little privacy between me and the neighbours. An old concrete path down to the Bottom Garden runs along it. To try and improve the privacy, I planned to have a more meandering path through the garden down to a new access to the Bottom Garden in the middle of the hedge. Then break up the old path and create flower beds along the wall with a 6' trellis fixed to the wall so I can grow climbers up it.

The western boundary is a very low dry slate wall, in quite poor condition and again providing little privacy. I considered replacing it with a fence but didn't really like the harshness of that. Instead I decided to plant hedging inside the stone wall to create a softer boundary.

The Bottom Garden seemed to fall naturally into two distinct areas: the sloping part, which I would need to somehow incorporate a safe way down to the bottom, and the flat part at the end. They are roughly similar in area. I thought that I could probably create some terracing down the sloping area, by incorporating raised planters used as retaining structures and with steps alongside. This would create quite a large "allotment" area and could include a greenhouse at the bottom. The flat part seemed to naturally blend into the wildness of the abandoned railway beyond it and I could imagine that being a really lovely wild garden area with some sort of summer house down there.