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About 79 Crabtree Lane
The garden is ¾ of an acre, which faces west, and was originally vegetables and fruit trees which was slowly changed to its current design in the late eighties and early nineties. It is an all year round garden comprised of many established and contrasting hidden areas. The patio is surrounded by shrubs and an alpine bed with water feature. The colour themed herbaceous beds and island beds contrast with conifer and shrub planting. The rose garden which was replanted in 2012 will be at its best in June. 2 ponds, a rockery and pergola covered by roses, clematis and honeysuckle, a woodland garden with arisaemas, podophyllum and other unusual woodland plants, an exotic garden surrounded by stone walls and a gravel garden with Mediterranean plants, surrounded by a beech hedge complete the main structure of the garden. All the hard landscaping was done by our son Michael. We have used both natural stone and reclaimed brick which came from locally demolished stables that housed horses working on the Leeds – Liverpool Canal. Among his projects he built a ‘derelict dry stone bothy’ and a stone potting shed with old oak beams and a slate roof. Other than the help from our sons we do all the work ourselves spending many hours in the garden especially now we have both retired.
Most years we make changes to the planting and design of different areas but leaving the overall structure as it was originally made. In 2009 we erected a polytunnel which replaced one of our greenhouses leaving space to create “The Railway Garden” – so called because the Wigan to Southport Railway runs alongside the garden. This garden has various colour themed herbaceous beds with grass paths giving a closer view of all the unusual plants.
In 2013 and 2014 the Koi Pond area has been completely redesigned. All the conifers and Golden Leylandii have been removed and a raised walkway over the rebuilt waterfall has been built giving a viewing platform of the waterfall, shallow wildlife pond, rill and Koi pond along with views over the rest of the garden. A seat with an arbour covered with clematis and surrounded by new herbaceous beds completes the design.
Also in 2014 the area surrounded by a beech hedge has been made into a gravel garden filled with tender Mediterranean plants.
The front garden was redesigned in 2012 with York stone drives and paths and 2 raised beds, one with large alpines and the other for small shrubs and trees under planted with low growing perennials.
In the winter of 2015/16 many of the trees have had there canopy lifted and shrubs cut back to give a more open feel to parts of the garden that had got overgrown. This has given more opportunity to increase our shade loving plants. We continued this opening up of the garden over 2016/17 and 2017/2018 also replaced some grass paths with bark. This has not made any difference to wheelchair access.
To watch a short video of the garden: https://youtu.be/CW7S8nB_iX8
also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqpxW7_8HT4.
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