brook lane garden

getting started

Posted on June 8, 2015 Updated on June 10, 2015

I may be a bit slow at this at first, first time at a blog and all that. I’m excited to construct this site over the next few years and document the ideas that we’ve tried in the garden. Our garden evolved gradually – when we started we just wanted a green space to relax in, but over the years, and taking inspiration from numerous places, a philosophy of sorts emerged. There are three strands to it: Children, Parents and Nature. All three have specific needs, but we didn’t see any reason that a garden couldn’t cater for them all at the same time. Our garden is small, about 25m by 7m, but we wanted to make it feel big. We wanted to avoid non-natural materials and be organic (though we’re not perfect at this by any means) and we wanted to recycle and build as much as we could on a limited budget. We have have twin boys aged three, who road test everything, so the garden had to be tough. We both work, so it needed to be easy to maintain. Along the way we’ve made lots of mistakes, but that’s the great thing about gardens, they forgive you!