Creating a walled garden from scratch – The Shady Wall

Garden transformation Part 5 – The north facing wall

This is a 30ft long border on the right hand side of the garden, near to the house. It had an existing old fence that the foliage had entwined itself through.

As I mentioned previously in Lets get stuck into the garden makeover, we took down and dug out some very large conifers from this area. Hidden behind them we found a small section of lovely old sandstone wall. We also discovered that the old crazy paving patio in the corner was substantially larger than we’d been able to see. We weren’t really surprised that this had been a seating area. As despite it being a north facing boundary the patio gets the sun all through the afternoon. This was definitely going to be our main eating area.

The boundary fence was almost covered over with foliage and was in a very sorry state. Luckily the strong branches of a beautiful David Austin rambling rose ‘Rambling Rector’ and a great deal of ivy, were holding it up.

We asked our new neighbour (now a friend) if she minded us replacing it with a wall at some stage. She seemed happy about it, her only concern was that we did not disturb the birds. This was fine with us as we also wouldn’t want to disturb nesting birds.

We made a start in the corner in mid-October 2013 two months after moving in. Firstly ripping out a section of the old fence. Involving more trips to the recycling centre with the pick-up piled high. Then digging the foundations and riddling the soil to put into the newly built raised vegetable beds.

Then out came the old Belle concrete mixer, to mix concrete by lamp light.

The worst thing about working outside in the winter, apart from the obvious weather, is losing the light so early. We invested in an outdoor flood light and a chimenea to keep warm, as we had plenty of wood to burn. This allowed us to plough on and by November we’d built the first small six foot section of the boundary wall.

Having the corner built meant we could build a raised bed in front of the existing sandstone wall. We had decided to replace the hideous overgrown conifers with a bamboo bed, as we needed something to give privacy from a house at the back. We wanted to get the bamboo planted as soon as possible, so that it could start shooting for the sky.

As we drifted into December, the winter weather finally got the better of our building activities and I joined my husband who’d already made a start tackling the holly hedge.

Small break

We didn’t get back to this wall until early 2015. The ‘Great wall’ on the other side of the garden had taken priority all through 2014. Luckily the fence had held up on the shady side.

March 2015 – back to it!

Even though the ‘Great Wall’ was far from finished, we knew we had to get back to the shady wall, as the birds were on the verge of nesting in all the foliage. If we didn’t take it all down now we’d have to wait until August.

The answer was to get a bricky in, just to do one stretch of the great wall. This would get us past next doors patio area and give them their privacy back. This left me to get on with the shady wall and it was still cold!

It felt really odd laying bricks with a bricky in the garden.

By April we’d both finished are respective sections. I couldn’t do anymore on my side until we’d finished all the house alterations (a long way off!).

We then built another raised bed in front of the shady wall. It butted up to the raised bamboo bed, forming a cosy corner for the main outdoor dining area – the pizza patio. As I’ve already mentioned, this is a north facing wall, meaning the new bed was shaded for most of the day. This made it perfect for the ferns and hostas we’d brought with us.

The intention is to extend this wall down the side of the house and out to the road, but because of pending house alterations (held up by the pandemic), it’s not been done as yet. Hopefully we are just on the cusp of it getting started. But as with everything else at the moment I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Stay safe & happy gardening.

Part 1 – Let’s get stuck into the garden makeover! Part 2 – New garden, new cat! Part 3 – Building the raised vegetable beds Part 4 – Lady bricklayer? Part 6 – Creating a walled garden from scratch – The Great Wall Part 7 – Bamboo and Hosta raised beds Part 8 – The Majestic Walnut Tree Part 9 – The Holly and The Ivy Part 10 – Greenhouse, take two Part 11 – The Fruit trees Part 12 – Dreaming of a Pond Part 13 – The White Garden Part 14 – Gardening on an Ice-Age Glacier Part 15 – Creating the Pathways Part 16 – Creating a Woodland border Part 17 – Digging up the lawn