Mrs Fox's Garden, Hertfordshire

The snail with the deformed shell that we allow to roam the rockery, he's been around for a few months now.
I posted the other week about our allotment and linked up to Mammasaurus' "How does your garden grow..." linky.  Well, I got a right ticking off from the garden.

What, not good enough for you?
Not flat enough, productive enough, edible enough, photogenic enough...?


You get the idea.  So, I thought I had better even it up with a post on the garden too.  How about a little tour.  Here, let me take you around in 5 quick steps, it's not a big garden:

1.  It isn't flat - One of the original negatives when we first saw our house is that our garden is on a steep slope.  The slope makes it rather hard to photograph.

The garden looking from the house to the studio at the back

Previous owners of our house terraced the garden with an awful lot of concrete. The concrete has meant a four year "greening up" process.  That is still on-going, hence the orange plastic fencing below.

The garden looking from the studio down to the house.

2.  The Pergola - As I mentioned to Jean (notsupermum) there is always a bit of a struggle between the garden and the allotment.  Time is never on your side with two small children, two small dogs and a small business to run.  But there is nothing I enjoy more than a sunny day, friends over for a meal, all of us sat out in the garden and the children running around like loons.  I love to cook, I love to eat (& drink a good wine) and I love to have had a hand in growing the things I eat.  The pergola has a grape vine growing over it, houses our garden table and chairs, providing shade on those (occasional) sunny days.  From the grapes we've made a just about palatable white table wine and from the vine leaves, dolma, that we make just as soon as the leaves are big enough. As you can see this year they've a bit of a ways to go yet.


3. The Studio - The garden is a constant source of creativity and inspiration.  So when we decided that the horror of a garage at the top of the garden should be knocked down and rebuilt as a smaller garage with a garden room, initially to be my studio.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.


There she is in all her pristine glory, still not quite finished, but we all love the new garage/studio.  There is a playhouse for the children under the stairs, Storage under the balcony for all the gardening items and in the roof for everything else.  The balcony is a sun trap beloved by the dogs and wonderful for growing on my plants.

4.  The plants that rule the garden:  Aquilegia it has self-seeded into every nook and cranny in the garden, now so cross pollinated that I have no idea what colour any of it will come through, I enjoy the surprise. The common name for aquilegia is "columbine" which comes from the Latin for "dove", this is apparently due to the resemblance of the inverted flower to five doves clustered together (look a the pink one below to get what I mean).  Even though it is almost a weed in our garden I still love it, both the shape of the flower...


and the shape of the leaf, which reminds me of a ginko leaf.




5. The plants that rule the garden: - Forget-me-not before we had children we had Bilbo, our basset hound, he died four years ago and we were so bereft.  Our vet sent us a condolence card with a packet of forget-me-not seeds. They are now so abundant in our garden that they are in direct competition with the aquilegia for every one of those nooks and crannies.  While they may be small they are persistent, stubborn like our basset hound was.  And while they may not have the immediate impact of the aquilegia they have a tiny perfectness that I truly love.


For more beautiful pictures of gardens check out:

Mammasaurus - How Does Your Garden Grow?

22 comments

  1. Oooh, I love your garden, and I am so jealous of your studio/garage/playroom! By coincidence I also have photos of forget-me-nots and acquilegia this week :)

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    1. The aquilegia and forget-me-nots are everywhere at the mo aren't they. I guess it has been the right weather for them at least.

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  2. Oh my that studio- it's the stuff of dreams! We sat out in the garden to eat a few days ago and it's really relaxing isn't it when the children can run free and everyone can kick back and soak up the garden?

    Amazing photographs - that snail one is just perfect, I love how you can recognise him through his deformed shell. We too have aquilegia sprouting up everywhere at the moment, I never knew if they were a weed of a flower - I love how they look so I've always left them well alone. Ours are always pink and purple and I've not seen red or white ones before.
    I have garden envy now!

    Thank you for joining in again x

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    1. Thanks for hosting a great linky, I'm really enjoying looking at everyone's gardens.

      And yes, I am a very lucky girl with that studio. Sometimes I walk in there and say "hello" just to be sure it is really mine and I've not wandered into someonelse's house.

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  3. what a lovely garden it has so much i love the sun trap area and the rambling bits with the self seeded plants just fantastic. that's one happy looking dog.

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    1. Thanks, I should admit that all of the garden is "rambling" I'm not a big weeder as i just don't have the time.

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  4. Oh wow, it all looks amazing - both house and studio sit so well in the surroundings. I love the story of the vet and the pack of forget me nots - that is so moving and such a beautiful idea :) I adore the stories that are just as much a feature of this linky as the plants. This is what makes garden so special, I guess.

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    1. I am really enjoying this linky too, and your right it is the stories from the gardens and the time you spend in them that make them special. Now if it would just stop raining so that we can actually spend some time in them that would be grrrrreat!

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  5. Beautiful garden! Im in love with your studio! x

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    1. Thanks very much, I rather love your paddling pool ; )

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  6. Wow what an amazing garden you have, it looks incredible. Some amazing flowers and your grass looks wonderful! Fantastic photos as well :)

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    1. I will pass on your appreciation of the grass to Mr Fox, and he will love you forever. Why are men so obsessive about lawns?

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  7. Love your Aquilegia I have some great colours too, yours look beautiful, please can you save me some red seed, would love some for our garden :) knew they are called columbine but not the dove reference, interesting!
    I have a studio, all mine, it's had many incarnations, I've taught in it, used it as a party venue, giving it a makeover soon to use as a photographic studio, yours looks great!

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    1. Thanks, I will try to remember to gather the seeds and store them as separate colours. But I warn you, I am a little forgetful (to say the least) so if you wan to remind me later in the year please do and I'd be happy to seed share.

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  8. Wow, what an amazing garden :)
    I'm new to aquilegia. I planted them earlier this year without really knowing what to expect and I'm now a huge fan! After reading your post, I'm now hoping mine self seed around our garden :)
    My dicentra spectabilis has just finished flowering. It's one of the plants in the garden that I can't help but photograph because those heart shaped flowers are adorable.
    I got some forget me nots from my mother's in law's garden last month and planted them in pots. They're another flower that I've fallen in love with!

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    1. Thanks Michelle, I love my garden but I have to say it is often neglected for the allotment which I posted about last week.

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  9. I adore Forget-me-nots! They are so so pretty. We have a tendency to be over-run with Aquilegia as well, but they have such a 'cottage garden' type feel I think. I love that pink one - not seen one that shade before. x

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    1. I agree, the forget-me-nots are so sweet, I like the ones that have seeded into the cracks in the steps. And the cottage garden look was the look I was going for, although with a Mediterranean twist with the the grape vine and I have a little olive tree too.

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  10. You have an olive oil can too! I love the way mine looks with plants in! I want to find some other unusual containers too!

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    1. I do indeed and I have a teapot too ; )

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  11. I love everything from your studio to the plants growing on your steps. A totally perfect garden. I have a grape vine on my allotment but it has done nothing as yet, possibly too exposed.

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    1. Thank you. Our grapevine is wonderful. The previous owners planted it then completely neglected it, it was growing into our neighbours garden rather than ours. Once we had unearthed it from behind a stand of bamboo we had to cut it back build the pergola and then encourage it to grow up and into our garden.

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