A New Garden

One of the challenges which comes with building a house is that we have to build a new garden to go with it. At present, the only plant left growing in it is this rather large and ancient gorse; the rest of the garden is made of so-called 'top soil' scraped off at the start of the build - and it's full of stones.

Before his machinery left the site, our builder created some mounds of soil divided up by aggregate paths. To create the 'scenery' he also dug down about a metre, a hole which, to our great joy, immediately filled with water, so we have a natural pond. Its level does rise and fall a bit - more 'rise' than 'fall' in the present weather - but we're optimistic that it will be permanent.

Other than the mounds, the pond, and the paths, our garden will very haphazard, but planted mainly with shrubs chosen to benefit the local insects and birds. The former haven't put in an appearance yet, and the birds have been very wary of the various feeders put out for them, for the very simple reason that, other than the gorse, there's no cover for them to hide in.

Despite this, blackbirds, dunnocks, chaffinches, blue, coal and great tits, and a robin have all put in an appearance, so the potential is there. All we need is to plant some very, very fast-growing shrubs and trees.