At the end of our garden was a patch of ground which kept getting waterlogged. An elderly neighbour said there was an underground stream there, and although I never saw any evidence of this the water table did seem to be extremely high. I had previously cleared it of a diseased tree and a large cluster of snowberry shrubs and attempted to establish a few new plants but they weren't thriving. Time for a re-think.
Here's what I started out with:
Using the Japanese Maple and bamboo as a starting point, I decided to try to create an oriental style garden. I already had a Buddha statue which was sitting on my decking, so I could transport that.
I decided to keep the rowan, heather and sea-holly (all of which were planted to remind me of happy visits to the Scottish Highlands) but condense them into two smaller areas and add a miniature bamboo border. I moved the other plants and ornaments to different parts of the garden, laid weed-suppressing fabric and topped this with a mixture of green and white granite gravel. Finally I added some black slate stepping stones and a Japanese temple ornament from a local garden centre.
Here is the end result:
I'm really happy with how this turned out, and so is my cat!
