August 2003

The winners of this month's Garden Of The Month title are Andy Cobb & Dave Chilwell from Pembrokeshire.

The house is a typical, two- bedroomed Welsh cottage built in 1846 which had been empty for two years when they bought it in September 1997. To say that it was in a sad and sorry state would be an understatement - there was even ivy growing on the inside of the bathroom window!

After making the Cottage habitable they moved into it in February 1998 and then started two years of clearing the garden of nettles, brambles.docks and ground elder. In 2000 they started digging the beds and borders and at last began the best bit, putting the plants in, some of which had been sitting in pots for two or three years. They have used mostly herbaceous perennials and shrubs with the odd tree here and there.

The House as it was when they moved in

Although they have almost an acre of land, the photos only show the half tackled so far. Battling years of neglect has been an uphill struggle against clay soil, weeds and huge building stones (the remains of an old barn ) which seemed to have been buried everywhere. The overall plan was to create a typical cottage garden in which plants give colour and interest throughout the year (not only for themselves but for the local birds, bees, butterflies and other wildlife) and are allowed to seed themselves around freely - this has led to some interesting combinations and the garden now has well and truly lived up to their expectations.