Creating a Sculpture Garden

This is where I have long been thinking about making a sculpture garden..Rather pathetically I have never found the time or energy to give it any proper attention..I have dragged various bits that I've had my eye on to various [laces and they have quietly let the wild flowers and grasses obscure them..

Somewhere behind the wild flowers is a path...crying out to be redefined and celebrated with art

Lovely old steel globe left by a friendly assistant many years ago..a slate patio area for the table and chairs given to me for a birthday by my father now sadly passed away..weeds pushing up through the crevices and cracks..an old bench that I had tried to move a couple of weeks ago and only succeeded in snapping the wrought iron support..lies dying...BUT Margarita arrived with her whirlwind energy and picked up the scythe..her technique is actually more hack than scythe..the blade might never recover..but she hit the long grasses and down they fell!!!

Margarita might be small but she's a force to be reckoned with!

So together we have dug and scraped, cut and pulled..lugged and heaved until the wilderness patch began to take shape....To have someone to work with has been revolutionising how I can think..reclaiming this meadow into garden has been back breaking on my own and to have her laughing and joking as we plant and pick has been such a joy!
I can feel the gardening process doing us both good..healing and delighting!

Luckily my children are all sculptors/artists and over the years we have amassed lots of their cast offs. The black bust is of my eldest daughter made by her brother and the steel sculpture is another piece by him.

Eli, Margarita and I spent a morning digging out these chalk chips from an exposed bank..and then we wheel barrowed them into place..I love the bright reflective surface they have created around he dark pieces...

My two Super Heroines Margarita and Eli!!

We used to have a glass making company and this is one of the remnants encircled by the old steel orb. We anchored it by digging a bowl shape out and then stamping the chalky soil back in around it.

We scalped the long grasses using the sharp side of a spade after the hacking/scything.....and Margarita was keen to liberate my hydrangeas from their pots so she kindly dug them in with lots of compost around their roots.

 Margarita and a freshly made bed!

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Gardening on the South Downs..March/April 2015

Spring is stirring. The branches of the trees are still pretty much naked. The white rowan in the fore ground was planted for Isabelle who as a young girl danced ballet..it looked as though with its little white berries gleaming, it was holding up its arms in a delicate arabesque.

Fennel self seeds everywhere and will I know soon dwarf the rosemary. I'm thrilled to see the foxglove seeds I planted have turned into lovely plump babies this year. Foxgloves or Digitalis are definitely one of my very favourite plants...such a delight to find growing in woodland often with sensuously curling ferns nearby.

My funny birthday gift lady gnome is standing clutching her basket in amongst the onions and feverfew.

Rhubarb got itself off to a good start. Poor thing I don't actually do much for it..except give it a drink if it asks. The crumble it gave me a few weeks ago was sensational...and last years rhubarb and ginger jam still tastes wonderful.

I laid out an array of wedge shaped beds a few years ago to wrap around the lime trees in the middle of the garden...sadly the last few seasons I have had no time at all but this year decided to make a real effort early enough in the year for it to make a difference...and hooray my sister-in-law Margarita came to stay and amazingly gave me a hand. The kindly kept working while I dragged myself to the computer to work 'work'.

The grasses and wild flowers so short and contained in this image are now so tall it's getting hard to walk through them...The whispering aspen tree sends out suckers I suppose they are... that happily grow where they can.In the distance is a ginkgo.

Weeding between the beds has helped enormously...early days so the weeds have hardly started to grow.

Adding seeds beds in the form of containers...

The thistles and nettles and of course docks grow thick and greedy..I refuse to put down weed killer so these are on the list to pull up by hand.

Big bruisers..their bark is worse than their bite as they come up out of the ground really very easily.

As seeds are now in the ground the cross chooks are confined to their run..but it is hardly small or too boring for them. Lots of shade and areas to scratch and ferret in.

Cuttings from last years pruning of the beech tree hedge..dragged out to enable gradual burning in the log burner.

Potatoes are in and tucked up warm..with some of Michael's lovage to keep watch over them.

Chooks meanwhile keep an eye on me and petition every day to be let out...petitions denied!! Until after harvest.

Meantime the front garden starts to come to life...the path to the postbox.