Like most gardens, mine can be considered to have different zones. Not garden rooms as in fancy stately gardens or Gardener’s World. More areas of varying degrees of weediness. I’ve got full ecological succession going on in places, with at best areas of wild scrub and at worst the beginnings of woodland with small trees gradually taking over when I don’t spot them in time.

The Flower Beds

There were originally flower beds in the Too Lazy garden. They have now all but disappeared to be replaced by weed beds. I did try and weed some of the flower beds at one point, with the intention of planting bee and butterfly mats (pre-seeded mats that you roll out to grow wildflowers specifically for butterflies and bees). Then I realised I was weeding out wildflowers to grow more wildflowers in their place, which seemed a bit pointless. So I’ve ended up with a patchwork of expensive cultivated “wild” flowers and our original mix of weeds “au naturel”!

The Tree

Well at least I don’t have to weed the tree. The tree is in fact an early season Discovery apple tree, which in a good year produces masses of lovely sweet apples (many of which have ended up in a friend’s cider press in the past). In spring it is a mass of blossom, buzzing with bees and crawling with insects for the local birds.

The Hedge

The hedge didn’t really start off as a hedge, but was originally a series of individual bushes, neatly pruned and spaced along the fence at the back of the garden. Under my expert cultivation, they have morphed into a tangled thicket of dense undergrowth. This has the benefits of providing privacy from the neighbours beyond (who are either delighted at no longer being able to see into our wilderness or horrified at the wall of encroaching green they see beyond their fence) and providing shelter and food for the insects, birds and hedgehogs that now frequent it. Not sure what shrubs were originally in there, but it is now a thriving mix of Buddleia and Berberis, brambles and bindweed.

The Ponds

Well to call the original pond a pond these days is stretching the definition of “a pond” a bit. It is more of an enclosed rectangle of soggy loving weeds growing out of a layer of damp gloop. There is however just enough liquid left on top of the mud to support a few brave invertebrates.  We inherited this pond when we bought the place and for many years I intended to dig out a “proper” pond; but along with being too lazy to weed, it turned out I was too lazy to dig as well! Fortunately I have a friend (Gwyndaf) who is less lazy than me and who has very kindly created a new and much better wildlife pond for the garden.

The Lawns

The use of the word lawn, is probably some kind of breach of the trade description act. I have two areas of green mossy clumping grass, punctuated by the odd thistle. I should probably give in and just let them turn into meadows, but even lazy gardeners like somewhere relatively clear to sit and drink the odd glass of something chilled in the summer, and it also helps to have a clear patch when putting out the moth trap, so the one patch does get mown occasionally. The other is currently beyond the help of any known lawnmower.