Another winter over....

March 20 2013

Hello. My name is Clare Holt, and I run a small production business in Oxfordshire, called Nice Tree Films. I'm also a passoniate, if inexpert, gardener, and have been in the process of re-designing my Oxfordshire garden for the past two and a half years. I love plants, and I love being outside, and I thought that by writing a blog I could document the transformation as it happens. So here we are - Nice Tree Garden Blog - welcome, and I'm really pleased to share my thoughts and gardening highs and lows with you!

We moved here three Easters ago - and it's fair to say that the garden is what sold the house to us!

It was fantastic - large (our previous garden was a postage stamp), perfectly manicured, but, well - perhaps a little too neat. It was home to several specimen plants which succumbed within a year to a particularly harsh winter - so they had to go. Among them was a Eucalyptus, a couple of Yuccas and a huge Phormium. We set about changing the shapes to make the whole thing less formal and introduce some curves, and these beds are still very much a work in progress. The soil is sandy, light and stony, so we have added a generous dose of horse manure and will add more this autumn. Amazing numbers of worms have appeared as a result, and we have a resident robin who delights in fluttering about whenever one of us is out there. 

We are west-facing, with an 8 foot high fence right down one side which casts a shadow over almost half the width of the garden for many hours of the day. Last year I planted a mixed hedgerow of Photinia Pink Marble, Buddleja 'Lochinch' and Spiraea prunifolia 'Plena", which I hope will grow up to cover the ugly fence and provide some interesting colour throughout the year, not to mention somewhere for the birds to hide. We've also put in a number of climbers and shrubs: Sobaria 'Sem', which has gorgeous bronze foliage and spikes of white flowers in midsummer, Actinidia pilosula with its paint-splashed pointed leaves, Rosa Glauca which has a fantasic combination of deep pink single flowers and grey green leaves, and Fothergilla 'Blue Shadow' which has the most amazing crimson and scarlet autumn colour.

These still tiny shrubs will form the backbone of my new borders and I am so excited to see how they develop - it's the first time I've had a good sized garden to play with. I am lucky to have worked as a part time gardener at the wonderful Waterperry Gardens near Thame, and have picked up lots of great tips from Pat the head gardner, and Sian, the volunteer co-ordinator, not to mention my amazing friend Sue, who has brought numeous bits and pieces over from her cottage garden a few miles away.

I'll be posting lots of pictures and some video from time to time, so I hope you will keep reading!