Nick's Garden: The Story So Far
We arrived at our new West London home in August 2014. As the builders set to work on the house, I set to work on the garden. When I first viewed the house, it was the distinctive garden that immediately cast a spell over me. Below is a video of the garden in early autumn 2018, 4 years after we first arrived.
Read Annemarie Flanagan's coverage of my garden's NGS open day for Ealing Today
"The outline of the original layout began to reveal itself."
Although the garden was overgrown and neglected, having been left for over 10 years, as I began to dig, the outline of the original layout began to reveal itself. I soon discovered paths that had been hidden and beds that had been covered in thick vegetation. Behind a dense thicket of bamboo, on one of the three high brick walls that enclose the garden, I found a brass plaque that read ‘George and Marjorie Carter lived here from the time of their marriage in 1931. They designed, cultivated and loved this garden’
For over 60 years they tended this hidden oasis and now it was for me to restore and reinvent what they had created all those years ago. This corner garden measures 75 X 75 feet at its widest points and is set on several different levels. The garden is south-east facing, allowing for a diverse range of planting and environments, from baking full sun to cool dappled shade.
The garden is so hidden from the street that few people, other than near neighbours, have any idea that it is here. In the autumn of 2014, I began an extensive planting programme that involved creating a cottage garden border, a raised terrace and pond, a woodland walk and in Spring 2016, a parterre.
News from the Garden
