New Garden

In December 2009 we moved to a house in Ross-shire. The house is set in a plot of just over half an acre, which slopes steeply away from the house.

When we moved in, the garden was mainly grass with several mature Elder bushes scattered around the garden. There was also a corner which had been completely neglected with old tree branches, blackberry bushes and gorse.

Much of the plot was so steep the previous owner could only mow the grass by attaching a hover mower to a rope and virtually swinging it across the slopes.

One thing that became obvious very early on was that all gardens in the small development were overrun by hoards of rabbits. Just after we moved in we had heavy snow for several weeks and ended up with a covering of snow to about three feet in some places. Being unable to eat grass, the rabbits turned to devouring anything growing. Even trees and shrubs which had been untouched for years suddenly became fair game.

It was obvious to us that, if we were going to develop the garden, we would first have to prevent the rabbits getting in. This would be no mean task with close to 200 metres of boundary.

For info on keeping rabbits out I turned to the internet. The DEFRA site had some good info on keeping rabbits out of an area. Our alternatives were an electric fence, which had been shown to be very effective on farms and allotments but needed constant servicing and inspection, or a wire mesh fence.

We decided on the fence as this would be effective even if we got heavy snow in the future which is where the electric fence would fail.

A decision was made to get in the professionals to erect the fence, although more expensive than erecting it myself it would be completed over a couple of days and we could get on with other tasks.


22.03. 2010

Erection of the fence started and was finished three days later. We now had a rabbit free garden and work could start on creating the design.

We decided that all the very steep slopes would be planted with shrubs and trees thus taking away the need to mow the grass. Trees and shrubs would also be planted in other areas to fit in with the plan we had developed.

We wanted somewhere in the garden to sit and enjoy the fruits of our labours so decking seemed the best option. The ground immediately outside the patio door would normally be the best place to site it, but the positioning of our house means that area is in shade for a good part of the day. When we looked at the garden the best spot became obvious, a wide gap between a number of mature elders in the centre of the garden would be perfect.
 

Not having any experience of erecting decking, the professionals were called in again J Being on a steep slope, the front would end up about five feet above the ground but this suited the position and fitted into the overall design very well.