>I have previously mentioned that I had seen some bricks lying around at the back of the garden, and this past weekend I finally got around to picking them all up.
I think they might at some point have been used as the base for a wood pile, but that must be quite a while ago, since each brick was completely embedded in the soil and the whole length of the once-wood-pile was overgrown with grass and had later been used to pile up cuttings from the garden (mainly twigs, small branches and bamboo).
This is what I managed to gather. 54 bricks, all in perfect knick even though they are clearly nasty modern concrete bricks, coloured to look like real bricks. They do look nicer in the pictures than in real life, but on the other hand it’s not entirely bad, as the bricks are a mix of colours from gray to red, which does mean that even though each individual brick has no charm whatsoever, the combination of them somehow acquires a bit of life.
I wrote my husband and asked him what he thought we should do with them; use them for edging the Ambitious Border, build a planting box in the courtyard or something else entirely, and he was so hooked on the idea of a brick planting box that there was no doubt about what to do:
I played around with the bricks and ended up with this constellation; a simple box, roughly 2′ * 4′ * 8″ in external measures which seemed a good size for the small courtyard. However, I’d just made it in the first space I thought of, and after seeing it up against the wall I realised that we wouldn’t be able to paint the wall behind it.
The solution was to move it so it was up against the fence at the North-Western side of the courtyard, with just enough space to paint the fence when needed (but I’d want more space when painting the actual buildings so we don’t risk not being able to do it well enough.) and plenty of space between the end and the wall of the house.
I changed the construction a bit when I moved the bricks. This picture doesn’t show it, but whereas all the other courses have 5 bricks on the long sides, the lower course at the back only has 4 bricks, leaving gaps between each brick. Clearly, the reason for this is drainage, something with which I am obsessed due to our wet soil.
I know, I know… Normally you need to do all you can to preserve moisture in raised beds like this, but… We can’t have a summer house garden that relies on being watered regularly, so the plants will have to be drought tolerant and in that case I think it will be easier to just make sure that the soil will always be fairly consistently dry.
You can see there are already some plants in the planter, but they’re only temporary residents, awaiting that our drainage project for the lawn is completed so they can be planted out into more generous amounts of soil. These are lilac plants, and they deserve a special explanation:
I had been to the shop and as I was returning I stopped in front of a house that’s called “Syrenhuset”, The Lilac House. Aptly named it is, too, as its front garden is surrounded by a lilac hedge of generous proportions. I leaned in to inspect the buds, bursting in spite of winter still being going, with last weekend’s thaw only being an interim situation in the months of frost, and suddenly I realised that I was being eyed somewhat suspiciously from a window and then a woman came out and asked me what I was doing.
Well, what do you answer? “I was just admiring the buds on your lilac bushes” seems a somewhat implausible answer, but it was the only one I had, and we ended up chatting a bit and when she heard how I’ve always loved lilacs she offered that I could have some of her off-shoots. So she got a fork and I got four medium-sized plants out of the ground and politely declined more, since I just don’t have anywhere to put them, really.
3 have gone temporarily into the brick planter, and one has been placed where they will perhaps all go, in front of the ugly fence. Either way they’re 3-4 foot plants, and though they were moved without any soil (after all, I had to carry my shopping bags as well as 4 small bushes!) they do have a decent amount of roots, so I hope they will be all right. At least some of them…
Anyway, this planter might not be a large thing, but it holds so much soil compared to even a large pot. So much soil, so much surface area, so much planting potential. We want tall plants in this planter; a backdrop to the pots that will stand in front of it. Perhaps a climber that can take on the fence? Clematis? Or just annual sweet peas?
God, this became a long entry, but I just couldn’t show the lilacs without the story of how they came to be in our garden. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers….
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