Hi everyone, it's lovely to meet you.
This year, I am hoping to completely overhaul my parents garden for them and give them somewhere to enjoy all year round (Ireland Zone 9a). It's also somewhere that I can grow food in and we can all eat a little healthier. My mother and I have taken care of flowers beds and greenhouses before so we're not complete beginners, but this would be 'the big project' and I recognize the many gaps in my knowledge and experience.
It's around 21m x 14m with a very gentle slope, which is a great size but at the minute it's just grass. There is a hedge along the SW side and one along the bottom of the garden facing NW. However the one along the SW side will be cut down several foot to allow more hours of sunlight in the space as the sun hits the garden, unimpeded, for most of the day. We do intend to put up a small wall around the SE and NE sides to make this an enclosed space.
We all love fresh food and wish to grow some this year. A lot of it can be done in the poly-tunnel I'll be buying which is 8m x 3m and will be along the SW side of the garden (you can faintly see the string and sticks in the photo), but it would be great to have plenty of raised beds around the garden as well to grow other foods and herbs. Other than that, it would be lovely to have flower beds around the place as well to give plenty of colour, as well as areas for pollinators. The only other additions we've discussed are a small bench in the bottom corner (not visible in the photo) and possibly somewhere to sit in the middle of the garden, alongside the poly-tunnel.
It's such a big space that it's quite overwhelming to plan, so I would be incredibly grateful if any of you had advice or ideas on how we could best utilize the space.
Thank you very much for your time.
Wildlife notes:
This year, I am hoping to completely overhaul my parents garden for them and give them somewhere to enjoy all year round (Ireland Zone 9a). It's also somewhere that I can grow food in and we can all eat a little healthier. My mother and I have taken care of flowers beds and greenhouses before so we're not complete beginners, but this would be 'the big project' and I recognize the many gaps in my knowledge and experience.
It's around 21m x 14m with a very gentle slope, which is a great size but at the minute it's just grass. There is a hedge along the SW side and one along the bottom of the garden facing NW. However the one along the SW side will be cut down several foot to allow more hours of sunlight in the space as the sun hits the garden, unimpeded, for most of the day. We do intend to put up a small wall around the SE and NE sides to make this an enclosed space.
We all love fresh food and wish to grow some this year. A lot of it can be done in the poly-tunnel I'll be buying which is 8m x 3m and will be along the SW side of the garden (you can faintly see the string and sticks in the photo), but it would be great to have plenty of raised beds around the garden as well to grow other foods and herbs. Other than that, it would be lovely to have flower beds around the place as well to give plenty of colour, as well as areas for pollinators. The only other additions we've discussed are a small bench in the bottom corner (not visible in the photo) and possibly somewhere to sit in the middle of the garden, alongside the poly-tunnel.
It's such a big space that it's quite overwhelming to plan, so I would be incredibly grateful if any of you had advice or ideas on how we could best utilize the space.
Thank you very much for your time.
Wildlife notes:
- Sometimes we would see a hedgehog or two roaming around in this garden. (We can hopefully create a few small areas for them.)
- There are normally a lot of bees and butterflies seen in other parts of the property as there are Lupins, Lavender and other plants growing.
