Creating a shrubbery

There are some projects that take so long to complete and are so uninspiring during the work phase that I tend to just skip them over and show the end result, a few years down the line. Yet there is a lot to be said for documenting the process in a garden like mine, where nature is so strong that creating anything new in an area of wilderness is a challenge. The parking lot by Stensund, the red house, lies tucked away to the side of the house, hidden for many years underneath tree large old European spruces. Each winter I would glance anxiously up at the trees, swaying roughly in the all the more severe winter storms, until two years ago when we had five big trees down over the roads and I decided I didn't fancy having one of these down over my car - or myself - so it would be better to take the trees down in a controlled manner. It left an ugly scar in the landscape, as well as a tree stump in the middle of the parking lot perfectly placed for always bumping into and damaging the cars. The tree stump had to go, and seeing it was both wide and deep the easiest way to get rid of it in the middle of winter was to make a bonfire above it and then leave it to burn until it reached ground level. It only took tree days...

That spring I spent a lot of time looking at the scar left in the landscape, while considering the soil underneath. It was mostly rock and clay, with very little topsoil and a nightmare of old spruce roots criss crossing along the surface, so I knew better than to try to dig downwards. Instead I waited until the end of summer, when I had a lot of garden compost matured and then we began to build upwards instead. The edges of the area were lined with boulders and rocks, as those we have an abundance of all over the place, as a natural partition like that looks much better in a natural garden like mine than a wall made of form cut stones. Still, there was the problem of all the perennial weeds underneath the layer of compost, so I knew that even with a good deep foundation for the bed there would be a never ending nightmare unless it was covered on top to prevent the weeds sprouting through the layers of soil and compost, the soil was then covered with weed suppressing fabric, and that was covered with wood chips in accordance with the naturalistic theme.

I planted the shrubs and trees in early autumn, through small gaps in the weed suppressing fabric, taking care to fill up the holes with compost as the worst thing for roots is being left in an air pocket where they swiftly dry out. To get hight I planted trees, Caucasian linden Tilia x euchiora, spring flowering hawthorn Crataegus laevigata 'Rosea Flore Pleno', and purple leaved crab apples Malus "Hopa" and Malus "Royal beauty", and then I planted a sea of flowering shrubs starting from spring with Azalea "Juanita", Rhododendrons "Pohjola's daughter" and "St. Michel" going into summer with Salix gracilistyla "Mt Aso", Aronia x prunifolia "Aita" and autumn with Virbinum dentatum "Blue Muffin" and "Physocarpus opulifolius "Jefam". All along the stone edges goes a free forming hedge of Spirea japonica "Odensala", which has delightful pink flowers in summer and good autumn colour on the leaves later on.

When spring came, the area was bare but with the bones for a beautiful shrubbery.