Thus far

The garden May 11, 2025

We have about 100 planted containers on the patio. They’re of all sizes, mostly made with recycled plastic and filled with compost. I started switching to top soil for the meadow plants, since I feared that compost might be too rich for some of the native meadow plants. I also bought some acidic compost for the heathers.

The plants mostly come from Natural Surroundings, in Holt, Norfolk. We also made a trip further north to Naturescape in Nottinghamshire.

We have the beginnings of a native hedge, a pond with a solar-powered oxygen pump, two small solar-powered water fountains, two bog gardens, three yellow butterfly chairs, two small coffee tables, a purple bench, a composter, a storage unit, a bird bowl, and a bird feeder.

The pond with yellow Iris (Iris pseudacorus), sweet flag (Acorus calamus), European frog-bit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae) and marsh marigold (Caltha palustris.) We had to put two of these pond shells together, since the first one slumped on its own.

There’s two trees - a field maple (Acer campestre) and crab apple (non-native, Malus × zumi 'Golden Hornet'.)

The field maple was planted earlier this year.

The planters for the hedge (see below) came with the flat when we bought it and had a non-native and not very happy hedge plant in it. I’ve replaced some with wild privet (Ligustrum vulgare). Later, we plan to add in box (Buxus sempervirens) and hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna.) The bird feeder is up. We’ve only seen one bird visit it thus far and suspect we’ll need the hedge to grow a bit first for the birds to feel safe.

We’re dismantling the non-native hedge (far left and right grey pots), and replacing it with a native hedge (center pot).

The gardening tools are kept in the storage unit, and the black and green composter takes the garden and some food waste.

Here’s the water foundation in action.