Five garden plans for 2025

Still too cold and wet to get stuck into any serious practical work outside, now is the time for dreaming up new features for your garden.

Our advancing age (now combined 207 years) appears to have engendered a certain dottiness in our respective plans for 2025, but we’ll let you be the judge of our top 5 ideas…..

1.Topiary. Firstly I’m finally going to stop sitting on the fence about topiary. Having dragged Caroline to a masterclass on the topic given by the redoubtable Charlotte Molesworthy a couple of years ago I have stalled over blight and moths ever since. But my box hedges are still standing so they’re going to have a range of garden birds from wrens through to peacocks clipped into them this spring. It was the sight of Charlotte’s gorgeous characterful garden on Monty’s latest show (and our featured picture at the top of the blog ) that clinched it – topiary is the epitome of eccentric British garden culture and I want to be a part of it!

2. A spring jewel garden. My next project is an exercise in nostalgia. Many years ago Elaine and I travelled up to Scotland for a weekend to give Caroline’s then garden in front of her kitchen window a makeover. It was a shady spot under trees and we filled it with exquisite little woodlanders like corydalis, miniature epimediums, and the dainty Euphorbia dulcis ‘Chameleon’. We draped an early flowering Clematis alpina from the tree above which hung like a sparkling veil over the bright little gems dotted below. Like Rebecca visiting Manderlay in her dreams, I sometimes conjure up this pleasing little planting cameo in my mind and I am going to have a go at recreating it outside my study window this year.

3. Stone ruins. Oh dear, mad old gardening ladies here we come!  I saw that Laura was going to talk about topiary, and nodded knowingly, because I am also embracing a Victorian fad this year.  I went to the fabulous garden of Ninfa in Italy last year and was beyond moved by the way that the plants grew against the ancient stone walls of a ruined medieval hamlet.  The contrast between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ was dramatic and beautiful.

Victorian gardeners sometimes created fake ruins as follies, but we are lucky enough to have a ruined 15thC. barn in our Normandy garden – I came back from Italy with an idea 😊. So this year we (as in a long-suffering husband mostly with me directing)) are hauling chunks of gorgeous stone to be tucked into artistically-discreet corners of the garden amongst the shrubs and flowers.  

4. Impoverish the soil. My other big idea for 2025 is to somehow make bits of the garden less of a daily exercise in machete-wielding.  It was farmland for centuries, and almost everything grows like topsy in it. Including weeds and tree seedlings, obviously.  Yes, I know it’s a nice problem to have, but 80-90% of my gardening day seems to involve slashing rampant growth so that people can get down a path or find the veg bed.  

Thus I shall be investigating ways to actually impoverish some of the soil in an effort to curb the jungle a tad.  I may not have tons of crushed building waste materials to dump on the borders like Knepp used on their bowling green, but I’m sure I’ll find something that’ll do the job. Definitely no more compost or manure for a while! Failing that, I’ll threaten the giant plants with the lawnmower…

5. Stone walls – being the youngest growbag (don’t get excited, it just means I’m not 70 yet), I’d like to rescue this ‘eccentric aunt’ post with plans for radical house plants or midnight guerilla gardening, but all you’ll get from me for this year is stone walls.

On the plus side these are actual and not metaphorical ‘stone walls’ – anyone with a sloping garden should prick up their ears. How appealing is the thought of creating level areas in your garden by putting in a retaining wall, facing it with local stone and backfilling it. How hard can it be? I assumed building garden steps were above my pay grade, but it turns out even a numpty can create them (see the link to my video below).

Even the tiniest wall can change an area from treacherously slippy to a pleasure, and how many gorgeous saxifrages, lewisias, sedums and lizards are going to love living in them? I’m gathering materials: cement, breeze blocks, stones, core strength and a ‘can-do’ attitude so wistfully hoped-for by employers during my career.

We’ll keep you posted on our efforts this summer, but what about you? What are your plans? We’d love to know, because as you can tell, we might need some more practical ideas!

Like Louise, you may not be an ‘edibles’ gardener, but we bet you’d still love these extraordinary plants. She explains why Kalettes are included in her Great Plants this Month….

Here is the link to Caroline’s little video about building garden steps.

We’ve found a really irresistible new offer from Sarah Raven, plus great deals from Thompson & Morgan and Suttons AND please do check out the Genus Gardenwear and Muck Boot offer in the clothing section of our ‘Bag a Garden Bargain’ page. Use the links + codes here to save ££££!

What an absolutely lovely gift for anyone keen on gardening. Click on the image to find this pair of snips endorsed by the Royal Horticultural Society, perhaps the ultimate recognition in gardening. At £15.99 they’re a snip!

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