Shady garden makeover

Since marrying my husband 15 years ago, who came attached to a garden centre, I have had an increased interest in gardens. My last house consisted of 12 acres of neglected paddocks and was possibly a bit too much to bite off on my own. This house is only a 1/4 acre, and much more manageable. However the one problem it has is that the usable areas are on between 5 and 10 levels, depending on what you consider useable! So the only way to tackle it is one garden 'room' at a time.

The first garden we started on was the little shady garden between our house and the neighbours, a garden of 4m in width and about 15m in length, sloping, and sporting a terrific 60's brown fence and a whole heap more mud than grass. I never mowed it (mowing involved bringing the lawn mower down 3 flights of stairs...and then back up again afterwards), and none of the kids ever played on it as it was too small and rough. Probably also because I never mowed it. It also had enough ivy growing over the old fence to sink a ship, at parts reaching almost to the overhead powerlines. Once we started clearing of the garden bank which was shading my eldest son's bedroom, we discovered a little garden above a curving brick planter box wall, and a big pile of bricks just waiting to be turned into a curving brick path to match. The garden also included an existing concrete paver path curving around the edge of the brick planter to meet a little gate opening into the neighbours back path in a very sociable way.

The garden ran the full length - no great length at that! - of the house. Access was either around a path from the back door or else down 3 steps from the front porch of the house. The bottom of the sloping garden, which faces towards the front of the property, has a beautiful view of Whitirea Park once we cut out all the ivy and was perfect for the spa which was languishing in the parking area at the top of our steep property, where it had been for nearly a year since moving into the house. (5+ levels of garden = lots of stairs which does not combine well with moving a spa) It would be easily accessed from the house, with a lovely view, and makes use of a cold garden well as we didn't want to waste our one potentially sunny north-facing garden for a spa.

Down came the 40-year old fence and a funny little oriental trellis which was hiding the a/c unit from...well...nothing!

The second job was to create a level area for the spa pool. Initially we got a huge quote on both re-fencing and building a 4x4m deck for the spa, so we decided to pave instead. It didn't need a lot of 'cut and fill' - about 300mm both ways and a little sleeper above and retaining timber below and it was ready to go! I find a 450mm paver looks great when it is edged with old bricks. It takes away the brand-new look of it which clashes with old houses.

From there we continued the paling fence up to meet the brick garden, and built a new garden gate through to the neighbours' house. These two houses were built at the same time so many years ago - I wasn't going to be the one to break them up!

After the spa area was finished, it was time to get rid of the remaining lawn to avoid any more marital tension over lawn mowing! We had the brick path built just off-centre, and dug up two beds either side. The soil was terrible, of course. Up until the '80s there had been a concrete water tank - two sides still visible behind the pile of bricks - when most of the steep bank had been dug away to create this garden. So all that was left was clay and rotten rock in many areas.

 Stay tuned for an updated photo of a year's growth. Once I have weeded it...

Below is the list of plants I have used. These are suitable for shady, south-facing and slightly acidic soils:
Largest:

• Magnolia "Genie" (rich red, deciduous, will grow to max 4mHx1.5mW)
• Berberis "Helmond Pillar" (burgundy foliage, deciduous, will grow to max 2m x .5m)

Medium:

• Hydrangeas "Limelight", "Bridal Bouquet", and "Bloody Marvelous/Merville Sanguine/Raspberry Crush" (lime/cream, white, and rich red flowers, deciduous, 1.5m x 1.5m)
• Loropetalum "Burgundy" (burgundy foliage, pink flowers, evergreen, 1m x 1m)
• Azalea "Brides Bouquet" (white flowers, evergreen, 50cm x 50cm)
• Pieris "Christmas Cheer" (pink flowers, evergreen, 1m x 1m)
• Anemone "White Knight" (white flowers, 1m x 75cm)
• Daphne "Alba" (white flowers, evergreen, very fragrant, 75cm x 75cm)

Small:

• Heuchera "Obsidian" (burgundy foliage, evergreen, 50cm x 50cm)
• Bergenia "Blessingham Ruby" (green/red foliage, evergreen, pink flowers, 35cm x 50cm)
• Buxus hedging. This will be trimmed to 40cm x 30cm. 
• Annuals: Summer - white impatiens, Winter - white pansies, silver cinerarias, white primulas.