Looking for ideas for large walled gardens

highdef

Have recently bought a big old house in the midlands that comes with some land. This includes two walled gardens, one of about a 1/2 acre (the length being about twice the width) and the other being a little over an acre, this being closer to square shaped with the length being slightly longer than the width. They are positioned in a NE to SW orientation. Both of them are void of anything bar grass and nettles and rushes. The smaller garden has a small wood of large mature deciduous trees to the immediate south and east.

Obviously I have a massive amount of work ahead of me and these gardens are vastly bigger than anything I could ever have imagined I'd be working to develop however I'm wondering if anyone could point me to any resources to give me ideas plus tips and tricks to develop the areas, probably starting with the smaller garden. Whether it be books or website or whatever, I'm open to ideas.

I would probably go more for the informal look but I'm open to ideas. I'm a keen gardener and I know the essentials and more. It's just trying to visualise such vast areas that is a bit tough for me right now. I know that the southeastern wall of the smaller garden will need plants that can tolerate a good bit of shade but on the upside will be sheltered from cold, dry east winds. Same goes for the same wall in the bigger garden but with a bit more sunshine. Conversely, the northwest and northeast wall areas will get plenty of sunshine and will have the highest temperatures thanks to both the orientation and that the walls will absorb heat radiation from the sun during the day and release it after dark. I'm looking more for ideas of design and layout. I look like meandering paths as opposed to a formal geometric layout but perhaps I could have each style in each garden.

One thing is for sure is that this will take years as I'm not rich but propagation of plants is something I already do and I reckon I'll be doing a LOT more of it, going forward!

Cheers in advance.

looksee

Probably your first consideration is what do you want to end up with? Decorative or fruit and veg - or both. It looks as though the house opens onto the larger garden so will you need to put in patio/sitting area. Do you have to consider swing sets and trampolines? Do you envisage a traditional walled garden, or is it more a garden with a wall? How high are the walls - the shadows suggest they are not as high as a traditional walled garden walls. What are they constructed from? Attractive brick or stone, or old blocks? Will you want to hide them?

What will you want by way of sheds? I suggest you decide on a fairly big corner - a shady one - where you can have compost heaps, timber piles and all the usual garden junk, and put in a hedge to divide it off and hide it. What are the trees like in the smaller area? If they are not much you might consider thinning them and using that area as your veg garden, traditional walled garden style. You can put some fruit bushes in light shade, raspberries don't mind some shade for example.

Nettles would suggest its decent soil, rushes would suggest its damp, so you may consider whether some drainage is necessary before you start creating a garden.

When you have decided on these basic essentials I would think in terms of planting little groves of trees to break up the area, smallish ones that will suit a damp area, alder, willow, some birches (I think some of them prefer dryer ground, needs a bit of research) and let them break up the area and get established while you work on the rest.

It doesn't always follow that a walled garden is completely sheltered, the solid barrier can create turbulence a distance away from the wall on the inside, some trees along the walls to break the wind might be a good idea.

Hibernicis

How exciting for you. A bit daunting but a really amazing opportunity. Congratulations.

I’d strongly recommend you visit some of the many walled gardens that have been successfully restored in recent years before you turn your first sod. There is a huge variety of styles, planting and focus and many are truly amazing. Take a week and do a trip around the country to see 8 or 10 of them with a camera and notebook to hand. You will have a head full of ideas on layout, contrasting/complimentary beds and plants, structural planting, colour contrasting, where to put benches and seats and so on.

Also pick up a copy of Dermot O'Neill’s book “Clondeglass” which describes his work creating a walled garden. It will give you a feel for the journey. Also with keep an eye on Clondeglass on facebook which is undergoing another rebirth.

One question. How high are the walls ?? If you have a high south facing wall, then this would be ideal for fruit and I’d make that the very first part of the project to get it established asap. Dig and manure the soil this spring/summer and wire the walls and plant a batch of fruit trees (from seed savers) as either cordons or espaliers in the autumn. You should reap the benefits far into the future.

My last suggestion for now is to keep a photographic record of the project

Good luck with it !!

Hibernicis

Some thoughts on places to visit for ideas. Not criticising any that aren’t on my list, this is off the top of my head and there is a wide variety here

Mount Congreve (Waterford)

Glenveagh (Donegal)

Kylemore (Galway)

Fota (Cork)

Lissadell (Sligo)

Colclough (Wexford)

Vandeleur (Clare)

Malahide (Dublin)

Botanic Gardens (Dublin)

Ashtown Castle, Phoenix Park (Dublin)

Kinoth (Darina Allen’s place near Ballymaloe. Not walled but plenty of contrasting ideas)

Many others also worth visiting, dotted around the country. The good ones are worth two or three visits to see them in different seasons.

You mightn’t want to replicate any of these, and mightn’t have the resources to do so. But you’ll get great ideas for beds that you can mix with lawns or shrubberies to create something interesting and manageable.

rje66

Ardgillan , skerries

Reckless Abandonment

I'm so jealous I don't know where to start :)

Great advice already given.

Take your time.

I'd plan out areas for greenhouse, patio, shed. Bbq, ponds area plan all services to theses areas.. paths obviously this will depend on style you decide to go for.

Try to have a bigger picture in your mind for the whole garden. Then you can take it in bit size pieces.

It's as big/complicated a project as you want to make it. You've two gardens one could be functional the other extravagant. Best of luck with it.

slipperyox

Get a digger in, and dig a nice 10x10m pond, lined with clay. Use the guttering of the house to feed it.

Hibernicis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120162445#Comment_120162445

I thought it was on my list. Excellent suggestion. And apart from everything else worth seeing, they have a great selection of old Irish apples growing as espaliers, though it's on freestanding wire rather than walls. Only problem is that you have to depart and leave that amazing new glasshouse behind.

highdef

Thank you all, lots of fantastically helpful advice and it's very much appreciated. In the photo, the house is slightly out of frame towards the bottom/bottom left. The buildings visible on the left are old 2 story "sheds" which form an L shape.

@looksee The walls of the walled garden are original stone walls almost 200 years old and range in height from about 2m to 3m and perhaps a little bit higher again on the NE side of the smaller garden (which face SW). No swings or trampolines.....no children and none on the way. The soil is excellent and the main reason for the rushes is that cattle were allowed through the gardens right through winter for many years (before I owned the house). This led to very uneven compacted ground with areas where water would pool making it rushes friendly! I intend to rotovate and level all the soil when the it has dried out somewhat at some point in Spring......and no more cattle on the land! They can frequent the outer fields for the next while. Shed wise, that will be something I will look at in a few years time. For now, I can use the existing stone sheds that you can see in the photo.

@Hibernicis , “Clondeglass” looks like an excellent resource and I will be buying that book shortly, thank you. I have some other great resources but that would very apt as the walled gardens there are almost exactly the same size in total as my own plus it's also located in the midlands. It's further south than me but at about 200m above sea level, its climate probably ends up not too dissimilar to my own further north at 100m above sea level. Thank you as well for all the suggested places to visit, I'll be sure to visit at least a few of them. Have been to some of them in the past (Malahide, Botanic and Ashtown) but that was before I bought the house and I was not thinking of them in the same way as I would now.

The smaller garden is likely to become some sort of event space whilst the bigger one will be a blank canvas. @slipperyox, great idea about the clay lined pond. That's something I'll have to read up on. The soil is quite loamy (it's about as good a soil you can get for growing) so it may need a bit of work to enable it to work as clay lined rather than a liner. Would far prefer the former though, for all the obvious reasons! Luckily the gardens fall away slightly in altitude away from the house and sheds so funneling the gutter water to the pond would be a fantastic idea and not something I had thought of.........could probably borrow a digger from the farmer nearby.

@rje66 , Have been to Ardgillan Castle before during the winter several years ago. Don't think the gardens were open at the time although I don't think I even knew about them then but I'll definitely visit there this spring.

@Reckless Abandonment You're so right, it's a massive project and it's going to take many years. The other half is doing the interiors and I'm doing the exteriors so at least we're both deep diving into our passions!

I can post some more photos here if people are interested and even post updates every now and then. Again, it's not going to be something that'll be finished later in the year, I'd be looking more like finishing towards the end of the decade! Thank you though, everything said has bought been very informative, has got my mind thinking and has given me some confidence and inspiration.

looksee

It sounds beautiful and I for one would be delighted to see updates! I rather think an acre would be a lot to fill with just the traditional fruit and veg set out formally, I would go for creating 'secret' areas - not too fussily divided up as it is restful to look across an open area, but still your winding paths, groups of shrubs and little groves of trees - and pond! - would make a magical place to walk. Congratulations, it looks like a wonderful project!

HeidiHeidi

Bloody hell, I'm exhausted just reading about this!

I have about 10m sq of garden, and I can't keep up with that.

I'd love if you'd post occasional updates, I can't even begin to imagine where you'd even start.

As a huge fan of Glenveagh, I couldn't recommend highly enough a spin up to see their walled garden some time - it's both functional (flowers, fruit, veg, ornamentals) and absolutely beautiful, even in winter when practically nothing is growing. (The rest of the gardens are even more spectacular)

All I can say is, God bless your energy!!!

The Continental Op

Get yourself a copy of the old Gardeners Assistant (6 Volumes) by William Watson first published 1859. You can get a decent set of a later revision if you hunt around for about €60. OR you can download it here :-)

Why would you do that? Well it will give you a good idea of how the garden would have been run and planted when it was originally created. Many of the ideas you'll find in the book are perfectly valid today.

btw if the walls are all sound and you can gate it the first thing I'd do keep chickens (safe from fox).

The out houses and sheds might be interesting and you'll probably find some form of green house (lean too?) somewhere as well as cold frames and even forcing pits?

First thing I'd do as you say its got rushes is to look at the drainage. If you read the relevant bits of the Gardeners Assistant you'll notice that the old Victorian gardeners were mad keen on drainage, so it will be there somewhere and well worth sorting out. I've restored the drainage on a couple of walled gardens and with a bit of a feel for the land its not to difficult to find the drain runs. In one walled garden which I'd been told had no drainage because it was on a slope I found it by digging a trench across the lower end of the slope.

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120164179#Comment_120164179

Many thanks for the suggestion of the Gardeners Assistant. Had never heard of of it before. Just had a very quick look at the first couple of volumes and yes, it seems like a fascinating book so thanks again for that.

Originally, one of the gardens was for growing vegetables and that kind of thing. The other garden was an orchard. Can't remember which was which but I can ask my source again. Years of cattle roaming on the gardens right through the winter months when the ground would be soft or even fully saturated has done so much badness to the soil, with those rushes being starking evidence of it.

You mention the drains in a walled garden you worked on. Did they run in straight lines? Direction wise, was there anything that dictated this? Would the drains be terracotta type? Any standard size that was used? Sorry for so many questions but I would never have thought that there could be a drainage system beneath. Although I can accept that it's quite possible that there is not one too!

Hibernicis

I can post some more photos here if people are interested and even post updates every now and then.

I'd love to see you do that. It would be great to have a record of the progress and see your gardens evolve through the seasons and years.

Again, it's not going to be something that'll be finished later in the year, I'd be looking more like finishing towards the end of the decade!

Plenty of time. Ambrose Congreve said (in much less politically correct times) ""To be happy for an hour, have a glass of wine. To be happy for a day, read a book. To be happy for a week, take a wife. To be happy forever, make a garden". Given that he died at 104 on his way to the Chelsea Flower show he probably had some idea of what he was talking about and so I predict that you are going to be very very happy !

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120165238#Comment_120165238

But Ambrose Congreve was still a $%^^. You can take the from someone that nearly made the mistake of working there.

The Continental Op

You mention the drains in a walled garden you worked on. Did they run in straight lines? Direction wise, was there anything that dictated this? Would the drains be terracotta type? Any standard size that was used? Sorry for so many questions but I would never have thought that there could be a drainage system beneath. Although I can accept that it's quite possible that there is not one too!

Plenty have told me that there is no drainage system but drainage was part and parcel of growing in Victorian times. The whole point of the walled garden is to get extended cropping time. The prevailing thought was that spring rain made the ground colder so you had to get rid of it to warm the soil. The warmer the soil the earlier the crops. Don't forget labour was cheap and the materials ....

Terracotta 2-3, 4 and 6 inch drains would be the norm but I've even seen massive drainage systems in some gardens that were more akin to a mains sewer than a land drain. Ireland certainly had the manufacturing capacity to make the old style drainage although the largest one in the video look like chimney liners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geaKpiMKi_4

Box drains would have been a cheaper option you can see a good one here

Its years since I saw it but I remember a table of recommended spacings for lateral drains depending on soil type. Normally you get a herring bone pattern across the slope. With smaller drains running into larger ones. Once you have found one drain you can then make a fairly accurate guess where the next one will be.

Remember this is an old walled garden so the old rules apply. Double digging would have been the order of the day (yearly?) so in most cases except near paths all drains would be laid a minimum of two spits down.

Unfortunately there would have been plenty of labour in a walled garden so while drains would have been well maintained they'd have thought nothing about digging down 4 foot and lifting a few drain sections to get the rods in. Rarely would you find anything like a manhole for an interceptor (main join). I'd still keep my eye open for manholes all the same and broken bit of flagstone that might indicate their existence.

Any streams lower than the site you could look for an outflow?

You missed your chance unfortunately. Last summer was dry were I live and might well have show up some of the drain runs from an Ariel photograph

looksee

That film was an interesting diversion from what I was supposed to be doing!

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120165601#Comment_120165601

More fantastic advice, thank you. Investigative work on drainage will be very high in the order of early jobs to do. As for aerial photos, I may have taken some photos from my drone during last summer so I'll have to check those out. Would I be looking for something distinctive in the vegetation that shows up the drainage beneath such as how I can see the shape of the old road that used to run through the front paddock, before it was moved further from the house well over 100 years ago?

Oh, and there is a small stream another field away, downstream and forms the boundary of my property.

highdef

Found a drone photo from mid August last year. It's not that great but I don't think I can make out any details with regards to possible subsurface drainage channels. Also shown in the photo are the two large fields around the walled gardens with the red line showing where there is a small stream, this being the northeastern boundary of the property. Beyond that and to the north and east is newly planted forestry.

The Continental Op

Bad luck with the photos. Where I used to work in the UK in one garden they had photos of the gardens in the drought on 1975 and even though the drains on the lawns were very deep (4 foot plus) they showed up.

Any other structures, foundations or old iron mongery knocking about. Its surprising what can turn up. Metal work and marks in the wall can give a clue as to what might have been growing there. Peaches sometimes had like a curtain rail on the top of the wall that had a curtain that could be pulled over the blossom on frosty nights or metal struts sticking out that would take pains of glass to slow heat loss and reduce the effect of frost (or both).

Septic tanks are another interesting one. Rarely mentioned anywhere but the main house septic tank was sometimes near the walled garden so barrow loads of the Sh1t could be dug into when double digging - I kid you not.

Is there a bothy? Small barely habitable shed where the younger gardeners would live?

Don't get too hung up on the drains if nothing turn up (unless you really need them reinstated?) they will turn up in due course when you least expect it. I'd certainly be looking carefully at the base of that scrubby hedge line that goes from the middle of the larger areas wall towards the stream.

One serious tip with that garden is WATER TAPS and more WATER TAPS. At the very least run a couple of rolls of half inch standard pipe up the middle of each area and add taps and spurs off it when you find more use for them.

Tom_Tripland

I envy you! Hope we can see once it materializes!

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120168370#Comment_120168370

Have not found much in terms of metal work....so far.

There's a very small two story building near the main house at the southwest end of the smaller garden, visible in the last screenshot. The floor between the two storeys is gone but I can see a fireplace on the 1st floor so perhaps it was a VERY small home for the gardener.

Interesting that you mentioned that scrubby hedge line. Along most of this area, the ground dips down into a sort of ditch. There is water in it, especially as you near the stream and it does look like there may have been some sort of outlet pipe or something in the past but it's not visible at the moment. And if you follow this line into the large walled garden by way of the vegetation, it's almost as if it curves in the direction of the house.

There will be a whole new septic system going in (obviously) so perhaps more will be relieved when digging commences.

Deub

If I were you, I wouldn’t be looking at putting drainage the first year. I would wait a year to see the wet spots where there is stagnant water (if any). No point putting drainage only to realise 6 month later you have to modify it.

I would rotovate the gardens to loosen the soil and do a temporary veg patch, put annual flowers. Once you see how the grass/plants/vegs grow for a season, you would have a better idea of the different areas in your gardens and select the right plants/trees/shrubs for them.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120170721#Comment_120170721

I'm not suggesting the OP put drainage in I'm saying it will already be there. People didn't go to all the lengths of building a walled garden without putting in a lot of drainage.

I just want to make the OP aware thats its there as he said there are rushes suggesting wet areas.

Another reason of making the OP aware of it is so he doesn't get a machine in and end up messing up a perfectly salvageable drainage system. One very sloping site I can think of had no drainage pipes according to the owner but when he got in a digger to dig out for large polytunnel the machine took out tile drains with almost every scoop. Because this was at the bottom of the site that area just about flooded with all the water coming into it so I helped out finding the outflow (there was an obvious pond the other side of the wall) and the now working land drains were reinstated.

The site I used to work at in the UK had several springs on the site and some of the land drains piped water out of the garden. If they got blocked which often happened the cellar of the house would flood. I'm not suggesting the OP's house will flood but its not impossible the wet patches are from water coming from a spring that was drained when the walled garden was built.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120170272#Comment_120170272

There would have been more than one gardener with a walled garden that size. I used to look after a one acre walled garden with about 4 acres of pleasure garden as a full time job. I cultivated about half an acre of the walled garden for veg and hedged the rest off although I eventually used that area for soft fruit (raspberries, black currents, gooseberries etc) and maintained it mainly by keeping the weeds down with grass cuttings (tons of the stuff from the lawns) and a bit of spraying around the plants. With modern machinery that walled garden could easily become a full time job.

highdef really needs to make his plans according to how much time he wants to spend in the garden. Money will be another big factor.

Back to the walls. Any nail patterns in the walls? I used to prefer to set up wires along a wall, wire canes to the wires then attach the plants to the canes but often Hiatt lead headed wall nails were used https://www.flickr.com/photos/arne/20594039693 and the patterns of nail holes in the walls would indicate their use.

I'd just keep mowing it until I had a good idea of future plans.

Hibernicis

Any update ?

looksee

Ah, give them a chance! Its less than 2 months since first post - come back this time next year!

highdef

No update at all yet. I think looksee is probably correct though.

Hibernicis

Ah I wasn’t expecting results. Just interested in following the thought processes and ideas as they evolve.

Reckless Abandonment

Highdef get your finger out will ya :)

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120376883#Comment_120376883

I doubt it this week have you seen the weather forecast :-(

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120376883#Comment_120376883

Got feck all done today as it rained so day and I usually only get time to be at the house on some weekends. It may be that the smaller walled garden gets worked on first, depending on how plans transpire in the coming months.