What do you do when you don't have a garden at home but still want to create a relaxing retreat? For Vicky and her partner Maxine, the answer came when they discovered this bramble-choked, allotment-style plot right by the sea.
Over the past 13 years - or just one decade if you count the years they weren't even sure how to tackle the garden - the pair have created several distinct zones in which to express their creativity and love of local plants and found objects.
Their main challenge on what they lovingly refer to as "The Lottie' has been to bring everything they need by hand, along a coastal path 20 minutes from their home, but their hard work and ingenuity have paid off and hundreds of you voted their plot this year's People's Choice award-winner.
How did you set about creating the garden?
We had to clear it first and we did that mainly with hand tools. I think eventually we did use a strimmer, but it kept breaking so we ended up clearing it by hand. You couldn't actually access any of the levels that you see now at all. It had clearly been terraced in the past, though, and you can see remnants of the old walls, but it was so overgrown that you couldn't get down them. So we had to be quite inventive with how we did that. At the start I was literally dropping myself down the banks, using an old bed frame as a ladder. I did look for a slide - one of the old metal ones. It would be a great way to get around!
Can you tell me more about each of the garden's areas?
Bu hikaye Gardeners World dergisinin January 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Gardeners World dergisinin January 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
We love June
We're cruising towards midsummer: this is a month full of love and abundance. Wherever you look there will be something in your garden that lifts the spirits and makes you glad to be alive. We have colour to cheer us, we have leaves that still have the bounce and freshness of small puppies, we have the first berries fattening up, there are birds frantically parenting very demanding broods of chicks, the bees are all over the place, it's prime barbecue and picnic season, and we have lawns as lush and green as billiard tables. What a month to fall in love.
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