A Little Garden History

In our first article we described the why but not the where. Apologies for that, best start at the beginning properly this time. We bought this property in 2003, the garden is about average size and located in Broomhill in South East Bristol (England) and it needed some TLC to say the very least. Below are some photographs taken on the 10^th December 2003 just after we moved in.

The garden is on three small levels and in 2003 this is what they all looked like….

Top Level by the back door, a small concrete patio

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Top Level, a rough grass area on from the patio

Middle Level, more rough grass shown on the right of the retaining wall

Bottom level, the largest area of the garden with yet more rough grass

Clearly not very nice! However even in this condition there was wildlife. As we were clearing away the rank grass in the photograph above, we found part of a BMX, a mattress and a big chunk of a Volvo. We also disturbed a grass snake. And no, it wasn’t a slow worm! Admittedly though, other than that wonderful find it was rather dull and depressing.

As can be seen from photographs shown elsewhere on this site, things have massively improved over the years, well we like to think so. The garden gradually evolved. The bottoms been turfed (twice) with a lovely mix of rye grass and not much else. The tops been decked and undecked. But the middle saw the first positive change for wildlife when we dug a pond for wildlife (no fish to the disappointment of the kids). Frogs and toads moved in around ten minutes later, yet it would be 15 years before we found our first newt! How these first newts found their way to our little garden I’m still not sure.