The first border

The finished border in flower, orange zinnias in the foreground and the timber edge running away down the fence line

In 2022 there were no gardens here at all. Just lawn, a fence, and me standing at the back door looking at the strip along the boundary thinking something could go there. I do not much enjoy putting the ugly photo up, but that is honestly how it started: a string line, a spade, and a shallow trench in the grass with offcuts lying about where I dropped them.

I dug the grass out the length of the fence, put a timber edge along it, and filled it with soil. It took a couple of weekends and at the end of it I had a long brown rectangle, which is the stage nobody photographs and the stage where you wonder what you have done.

Then it got planted, and it turned out better than I had any right to expect. Zinnias, osteospermum, whatever else went in that spring. But the thing that actually mattered was the edge. Every garden I have built here since has the same timber edge, cut and levelled the same way, because this is the one that showed me what they were all supposed to look like.

The starting point: a shallow trench dug along the fence line in the lawn, string line out and timber offcuts lying on the grass

The finished bed from the patio, the timber edge and dark soil running the length of the fence with the shed and lawn beyond

Yellow and purple osteospermum daisies flowering in the new border against the fence

Note to self

Take your time on the first one. It turns out to be the one you copy.

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