The challenge!

Great start to the blog but not much to follow......does anybody care?? Well, be that as it may, here are a few photos, taken at Christmas, 2009 of what I was facing in view of garden transformation. Lovely space but completely overrun with elephant grass and very well established weeds of an astounding variety but, and perhaps more daunting, tons of buried rubble. There was only one place; the side beds immediately to the right of the garden, where, digging into the compressed earth, I didn't meet with the disheartening clunk of shovel on  brick/concrete/stone/broken glass/metal/bone (an entire dog), etc. However, the only clock I was racing with was my own so I simply worked away as and when I felt like it - which happened to be all my spare time and a little more but then, hobbies/obsessions are like that. Clearence of the space continued until March 2010 when I was able to actually begin creating a garden.

First steps in an English garden in Brazil

I've been persuaded by a friend to set up a blog about my garden in Brazil.

I shall organize it by telling the story of its development from abandoned wasteland to a reasonable garden and hope that some people might enjoy dipping into it. This picture, just to start off, was taken last January (Summer in Brazil), when the garden was about 10 months in existence. The sculptured tree like structure is passion fruit which, apart from producing somewhere in the region of 300 fruits, also took over the back of the garden, forming a very heavy curtain of lush vegetation and flowers, attracting enormous bees. In the foreground is a rose garden, surmounted by the charming boy angel (bought in a little shop in Lymington)
I would be lying if I didn't say I'm not in and out of the garden at every possible moment. H.R.H Queen Elizabeth was not exaggerating when she referred to the English interest in gardening as an obsession!