*Dreamy* English Sunken Garden | Full Garden Transformation | From Lawn to Lush Cottage-style Garden

When I was a kid, I used to love reading outside. And when we bought this cottage, I really wanted to create a place where I could sit outside in the sunshine and read. However, because we live in a woodland, there are only pockets of sun. And in those pockets, I wanted to plant flowers. So this year we embarked on an amazing adventure to transform our backyard, our measly grass filled, weed filled backyard into a little English sunken garden where I could sit outside and read some Jane Austen. So that's exactly what we did. So we have a beautiful day here. I'm going to sit outside and read. And you're going to go back in time and see where this all started. So we've just rounded the side of our cottage, and now we are in our backyard. We have a really nice lawn out here, and we planted some daffodils in the lawn last year. But now we have here this new daffodil border. We have daffodils and alliums planted here. We started this in the fall. But our idea for this space, since this is sort of a beautiful sun trap. And so we really want to make the most of that. An area for us to really sit, soak in the late afternoon sun and have a beautiful border of plants to really envelop us. And one way that we thought we could do this is to really embrace that beautiful, whimsical English country garden look. We love English gardens. I really learned how to garden from English gardening magazines, TV shows, podcasts and books. So we really wanted to kind of pay homage to that by creating an English sunken garden. It's kind of a perfect place to do it because this slopes quite considerably. It's always hard to see on camera. But from here all the way down to here, it's a considerable slope. So what we're going to do is we are going to create sort of an oval shape and we are going to do a beautiful patio here with some really nice outdoor furniture, a little bench and two comfortable chairs with really nice cushions on them. And then we can either have a fire pit out here or we also have the option of a coffee table here and then lots of really nice pots. There are two issues and one of them we're going to work with and kind of test things out. The other issue is one that we're kind of turning into a benefit. So the first issue is deer, right? We have lots and lots of deer here. But this is really an opportunity to kind of test out a lot of deer resistant plants and let you know how they perform for us. We have tons of white tail deer here. We have families of deer that kind of prance through our backyard. And they are so sweet and so charming. And I love them so much. I think they're whimsical and beautiful. And the fawns and does there's just my favorite. I just absolutely love them. But we also want to have a garden with lots of flower power. So I'm going to be testing a lot of things. I'm going to go heavy on things that I know that the deer don't eat in our garden that are deer resistant. Things like Nepeta, things like the irises, things like peonies. One of you suggested doing peonies back here. So we'll definitely do that in the back of the border. The other thing that we're going to go heavy on are a lot of annuals, particularly annuals that really call in a lot of our favorite animals and and and insects in the garden. Things like salvias, you know, the deer tend to leave salvias alone. And so but the hummingbirds just love them. So lots of salvias back here. And verbena as well. Great butterfly attractor and hummingbird attractor. That way we can really test and see if the deer kind of leave those things alone. The other issue that we have is that because we are on the side of a mountain, this is basically all rocks underneath the soil. And we're using this one as a benefit because we are going to actually be creating our patio hardscape out of all of the stones that we dig up from this dig and probably from other places in our property. And so we have these little stakes, little stick stakes put in place for generally where we want the the patio itself to start and end. And then we have these on either side. We can see them even if you can't. So we're looking at this kind of general oval shape here for the patio. So then the garden itself is going to actually just kind of continue this border upward and circle this space here like that. Then we're going to have a few steps down into the actual patio area. We'll have pots and lots of herbs and things there. Then it'll kind of carry on. We actually burned this hole when we were using our fire pit last year. And so we were we had so new grass seed there. But as we were kind of thinking about the design of this garden back here, I thought it would be kind of nice to sort of incorporate this into the garden design. So we're going to kind of swallow that. We don't have to worry about the grass seed. So basically, that leaves kind of all of this space here around the patio area for all kinds of plants, tons and tons of space for sun loving, deer resistant plants. If you have any suggestions, if you have things that you'd like me to try out, they can be annuals, they can be perennials. But yeah, I just think this is going to be so much fun. I am really excited to take you along from birth all the way to the fruition of it. Please excuse the black flies. Hopefully when we have this garden in place, the season of the black fly will be done. It is such a beautiful day. The birds are chirping. The flowers are blooming. The black flies are buzzing. But I'm so excited because this is day one of our sunken garden build. Hopefully day one of one. We'll see. All right. Let's dig in metaphorically and literally. The daffodils are looking so pretty back here. And the forget-me-not. And violets. The grass was so healthy that we decided to take the sod off in strips and transplant it in the patchier areas of our lawn. We just scarified the existing lawn, gave it a soak and then sprinkled some fertilizer. Then we placed the strips down and kept them well watered for several days. In this little area, we dug up so many rocks, and this is New England River Rock. It's blue, gray, tan and brown rocks that you can purchase for landscaping. So even though it makes digging difficult, it's quite amazing to have this resource. OK, so we've been working all day and just kind of leveling and measuring things. But the good news is this side, we've got an edge here. This is a foot. Exactly. And so I think with the rocks and the cement and everything that I'll bring it up to like 10 inches difference. So having two steps that are five inches, I think would be nice, like two wide steps leading down. I think that would be really romantic. And then planting that up, obviously, we could do like a ridge around daisies or something like that in between. That would be so pretty, or violas in between. How's your energy level? Oh, yeah, I'm losing it. Yeah, yeah, I'm tired. All right, let's go. Since this is a budget makeover, we decided to go with Quick Creek because that was the cheapest option. And we use that on the bottom and we placed all of the stones one at a time, ensuring that there was a slight slope downward for the drainage, downward away from the house. I also use this mallet to tap the stones in, securing each of them. I find this process so meditative, finding the right stone, slotting it in. It's like tickling my puzzle brain. Hey. It's day two, another beautiful day. We didn't finish up yesterday, but we did get a lot done. So let me show you what we're going to do today. The flies are still with us, so consistency. All right, so we got maybe, I don't know, two thirds of it done. Kind of looks like a yin and yang symbol right now, but it's just looking so fantastic. So we're going to get started by finishing up with the bags of Quick Creek that we have. Bert's going to continue to mix those up and then I'll lay all of the stones. We have gone through a lot of the stones that are good size and shape from the pile that we dug up from the hole. So we'll probably go to our other other piles on the property of rocks. To start to choose which ones we want to put in, especially since the areas that we're going to be doing now are a little bit more visible since these areas are going to be going to be covered by the furniture that we have for this space. The the perimeter of it, we're thinking of maybe doing a stacked stone wall. We have a lot of this slate that forms up pretty nicely. So I watched a YouTube video about it and we'll see how that goes. But yeah, I think other than that, we're probably just going to play around with a couple of ideas of how to finish off the perimeter. Then we'll dig out the steps here. We'll leave a few little pockets for some plantings, because I think that'll look so romantic and whimsical. Just kind of some flowers cascading over the steps. Then we'll form the borders, go plant shopping, mulch, finish it off. This is probably going to be a multi-day affair. But that's the plan for today. So we'll see. All right. Let's get started. How sore are you from yesterday? My hands are really sore. What's what's the most sore on you? My back. My yeah, my back is really sore from doing all the digging, the pickaxe. Definitely like this side of my back. Yeah, I just feel like kind of like a little bit tired and worn. I feel sour. There's that line in Lord of the Rings where he's like, I feel like like he seemed like butter spread over too much bread. I feel a little bit like that today. I'm so excited. It's so gorgeous. So you ready to make some crepe for me? Let's do it. How much you plan? You're always going to run out of something. So we ran out of quick crepe. And since we're heading to town anyway, we figured we could stop by a local nursery to check out what plants they had out. It was still quite cold at this time, but they had some fantastic things already out from their greenhouses. Then we grabbed some more supplies and our stones for the steps and headed back home. Yeah, it looks like a storm's coming. So we'll probably have to cover this. Try to hustle through this one. Okay. And then we'll put some plastic bags over it. Yeah. Let's see. Okay, well, the plastic stayed. Oh, I was going to say the plastic stayed up, but it looks like it flipped open there because it's so much wind too. Lots of puddles. Okay. All right, let me just get in here and see if the concrete stayed. Oh, this is kind of squidgy here. All right. We used big black trash bags to cover the quick crepe, which can be reused, so that's great. Okay. Oh, they're all stuck in really well. Oh, my gosh, I'm so relieved. Okay, not done yet. Oh, my gosh. That's so great. Yay. Okay, now about 20 more to go. Oh, it's wet here. But these are all stuck in. Oh, okay, fabulous. I mean, it's looking good. That's such a relief. All right, I just checked all of the areas. I kind of wiped it down and got rid of some of the water or the standing water. And it looks like everything's stuck. All of the rocks are intact. The cement is intact. All of the stairs are intact. So I'm feeling so, so encouraged. We're really lucky to have kind of a windy day today because hopefully that'll just help get rid of some more of this moisture. But the plan for today is to finish off our cobblestone patio, which we'll probably need about three more bags of quick crepe for that. Finish up this. Then we'll come in and we'll create like a stacked stone border. We'll probably just end up using these cobblestones so we don't have a bunch of different looking materials. So we have the cobblestones, we have these like paver stones, and then we can just finish that off with some more of the cobblestones. And that would be sort of sweet to just sort of feel like you're enveloped in this little cocoon of cobblestones. And then we have the most exciting part, the planting, creating the garden beds and planting our English garden. All right, let's go. Day three, baby. How are you feeling? How are spirits? Great, really sore. Me too. Ow. So this is just your little PSA. Always wear protective gear and be very safe when working with concrete of any kind. Okay, we have three different options. I think one we've ruled out. So we're trying to decide what stones to use as the veneer for the exterior circumference of this second garden. So these are the large stones. That looks very Flintstones. Having that all the way around, I think would just make it look like a giant fire pit. Right? Yeah. I think that one's out, basically. Then we have these other stones. So we have these smaller stones and that's just kind of a continuation of the cobblestone. And we have a lot of those on the property. My initial thought was to do the stacked stone from the slate that we have on the property. But this is probably the thing we have the least of. However, I think we do have some larger slate on the property. So we could just chisel that up because it's really brittle. So it's super easy. I mean, I broke through a couple of them. Damn. What do you guys think? Well, we're gonna have already made this decision. Hope you like the same thing that we ended up going with. Okay, so now we are just kind of doing the foundation for the stacked stone wall that we are doing. We're gonna be doing the smaller rocks up until the top, up until the very top of the stacked stone wall. And Brett, you like that idea too, right? Yeah. Okay, great. So what I'm doing now is just kind of creating that initial level. And what I'm doing is using flat stones. We have some like insanely flat stones on the property. So I'm just using that just to kind of create that initial shelf. It looks quite thin, but once we have things in place, we're kind of leaning them back. So that first layer can actually be pretty thin. And then it's just gonna curve backwards. Just like that, kind of. We did a layer of the cement, the quick creep that has all the gravel in it. And then we're gonna do some mortar just for the rest of the layers, just to make it look nice and tidy so it doesn't have all of these gravel bits sticking out. It's quite easy. All right, so we've done a lot of the wall. I think it's looking really, really nice. But the thing is, we have to shape the beds, the garden beds. So I'm just gonna kind of walk through with you and we're going to sort of figure out what the shape is. We have our punks with us, because the black flies were just like driving me crazy, like crawling through my hair. It's gonna be really hard. We have so many rocks. But here, carry it on like this, then through here. And then we go all the way over to here for now. So we're kind of creating a giant sort of semicircle. And then we just do the same thing on this side. So coming out from here like this, and then kind of come this way, down through this mountain and meeting up at that bed there. That's a decent size flower bed. That's probably like seven feet. So I think that's nice. I think that'll be a really nice flower bed. And then we can do some really beautiful things, lots of things spilling over the path. Like this just kind of came out of the ground. You know what I mean? Like very organic. Everything, all the edges are just blurred with all of these beautiful frothing plants just kind of bubbling over. So I think that's generally kind of what we're looking at. Now, why don't I go ahead and just kind of trace it with my heel? And then we can start digging. It's been a few days since we've kind of chatted and updated. We've got a rainy one today, but we've kind of dug out the sod, moved this giant pile, sifted through all of the rocks, cleared those and put the soil back into the bed. So that's a really nice base for our planting. And that's what I'm going to do today. Today, I'm going to be shopping for some plants in our own garden. So I'm going to be looking at what needs to be transplanted that fits under the requirements that we need out here. This spot here is like a sun trap. It's beautiful for a sunken garden. So what we're looking for is full sun and deer resistant because this part is not in our deer fence. So I feel pretty good. Are you ready? You want to go ahead and start shopping around? I'm thinking first stop, Napita. All right, things are looking pretty good. We're both very dirty, but very happy. How you doing? How's the energy, Bert? I'm good, I'm so tired. Me too. So I'm going to go ahead and show you what we've been planting. We've transplanted tons of stuff and I'm just going to kind of give you a little mini tour. Okay, we have to fill this in, but this is the front of the border of our sunken garden. So as we go down these steps, we have lemon coral sedum and then a bacopa. I think it's snow princess or something. Some kind of bacopa, a white bacopa. Then dusty miller starting at the front and coming all the way down. So that fuzzy, fluffy blue gray foliage will be sort of the staple. And then the stones are where all of our verbena is going to be. We're going to do purple verbena and test how deer resistant that is. Then we have our Napitas that we divided from the property. Napita, Napita, Napita. So it's going to alternate Napita, purple verbena, Napita, purple verbena, Napita, purple verbena, Napita. And then everything is repeated exactly the same on the other side. Dusty millers and Napitas. In the very back of the border, we're going to have a little bench here and that'll be planted up all with salvias, probably some wild daisies that I transplant. We've got some alliums about to bloom in the back there. I'm going to plant a bunch of hollyhocks and then I'm hoping to get my hands on some peonies that I can plant back there as well. So on the next row, we have irises. This is a yellow bearded iris. Some geranium, we need to plant those. Lambs ear that we divide. All of this has been divided, obviously. More of the iris. Sedum that was on the hill. This is a purple colored sedum. And then some more of the iris. Then this is a bachelor's button that needs to go in, a really beautiful centauria. And then this is the same. And then some lemon balm, which is fantastic and grows so well for us here in this deer resistance. So we'll see how that goes. And then that's the same on this side. So that'll be so fun. Then we're going to put salvias in all along the back. And then eventually we're going to kind of dig into here and start planting this out. I think that's going to be more in suede instead of this cottage style repetition, but I'm loving it. It's so good. All right, it looks like everything took. The only things I'm worried about are the centaurias. You know, it's been raining for days. And it didn't really pile up. Yeah. So that's good. Yeah. Salvia, two, eight. So let's do 12 salvias. And did you write down these verbenas? No. One, two, three, four, five, six. That's our list. Let's go see if they have it. All right, well it looks like we got everything we need. We just got back from our one of our favorite nurseries in the area, Equinox Valley Nursery. Those folks over there are amazing, great tips, amazing plants. And so I think we're going to go ahead and get planting. We have lots of salvias and verbenas, lots of fun things to try out for their deer resistance. They're really going to be tested. So what do you think? Place them and plant them? Let's do it. In order to get a sense of where we wanted everything, we brought out our garden furniture so we know where the sight lines will be. This way we can create little views and mini vistas from each seat. Even after sitting. That looks good from this angle. Yeah, that looks pretty good. Let's dig it in. So over the last few days, we put all the plants in the ground and they've had some time to soak in the sun and to really put on some growth. And I'm so excited to tour you through our English Sunken Garden. So this is the outer area of the garden. We have some really beautiful things, a combination of annuals, perennials, a few shrubs, one tree. And we have this beautiful, this is the lanai twister purple verbena. It's really, really gorgeous. It's like a sparkly warm purple color and it has kind of a buttery yellow center to all of the individual florets. Really beautiful. So that's kind of taking over. All of the perennials here, I think all of them, we transplanted from other areas in the garden. So this was such a budget-friendly makeover. And this is some lemon balm that we had in our herb bed, in the veggie patch, in the kitchen garden. And it's just taken so beautifully. The leaves are incredible. One of my favorite herbs for an apothecary garden, if you're just starting out, this is such a great one to include. It transplants beautifully. We divided it and transplanted one half of it. And it's just fantastic. The deer leave it alone. And that's the thing, like all of this is deer resistant and you can still get so many amazing flowers and bunnies. Not flowers and bunnies, but we have lots of bunnies here, tons of bunnies. We have lots of chipmunks and squirrels and things like that. So these are safe so far. We'll keep you updated. We have some lemon coral sedum here that's kind of coming over the path and that'll just continue to grow. It's been really, really happy. We have this snow globe, like snow princess snow globe, white bacopa. Anyway, it's a white bacopa. It's really beautiful. And that one's really spreading and filling out gorgeously. I just love that sort of tumbled look. And as everything grows in, it'll just tumble even more over this little rock wall that we have here. This is the verbena. This is a superbena violet ice. Really gorgeous. It's that violet color on the outside and that icy color in the center of each of the florets. The nepeta is already in bloom. Dusty miller all throughout. A clover weed. Get out of there. More nepeta. Play in the blue salvia. That's the rock and play in the blue salvia. We have some irises that we transplanted, daffodils that we've kind of tied up. Their foliage dies back and those will be really easy to cut off. Gosh, this is the superbena pink cashmere. Such a fantastic annual. Oh my goodness. And that pink color is so glorious. The bachelor's buttons have gone over at this point, but they'll continue to bloom throughout the season. The centauria. Look at the rock and deep purple salvia there. Isn't that spectacular? A little sedum that we transplanted that was on our hillside. That's a pink stone crop. Light pink star-shaped flowers. Really gorgeous. Lamb's ear we have in here. So again, we have dusty miller all around the outside and then we have nepeta, verbena, nepeta, verbena. The one that's in the most flower in terms of the verbenas are the lanai, twister purple. So much flower power on that one. More sedums. The rock and blue suede shoes salvia. And those salvias with the dark calyx and the really long trumpets, those are the ones that the hummingbirds are obsessed with. We saw them out here right before we came out here to film. They are just, they love those. And so having more of those back here makes me so happy. We transplanted some chives that were here and those are in bloom. So it's sort of like the alliums went over or are going over. I guess the heads are still out. And now we have some more alliums to kind of take over there. We have the kufia that's really beautiful. Definitely a water baby. Now that we've planted that one in the ground, it's much happier, but the one in the pot is just always thirsty. Always thirsty. This pineapple sage is gorgeous. Another one that I love using for tea. So I can just come out here, harvest some of this, a little bit of the lemon balm. We also have some eucalyptus, really beautiful eucalyptus over here. This one is the eucalyptus cinerea. So just your standard silver dollar eucalyptus. So beautiful. The leaves smell incredible and everything is like a storybook. It's completely matching on either side, which is really fun. This is the Styx eucalyptus. Really gorgeous as well. We have rock and play in the blues in the background. Our juniper, our blue juniper back there. And we also have lots of hollyhocks. So those will be super cottagey and come up really beautifully. Some more salvia in the pots. I think this is called cascade something. Let me see. No, cathedral. Cathedral deep blue. I'm going to start with a C. Cathedral deep blue. Very beautiful. Lots of color on that. And then this gorgeous peony. One of you suggested putting peonies back here for their deer resistance. And I'm just so glad that you suggested that. I don't know why that didn't cross my mind. That's a genius idea. This is the alerti. A-L-E-R-T-I-E. Alerti. Alerti? Alerti? So beautiful. I love that. The picture makes it look like it's more white, more kind of a creamy color with like just a hint of pink. And it's really, really pink. Gorgeous. Isn't that stunning? Oh, I love it. It's all butted up. So we'll just show you that throughout the season and tours. And again, the exact same one on this side. Gosh, look at this. I mean, back here. So this gets like a big slice of that afternoon sun. This one's so much bigger. It is getting eaten by something. Probably grasshoppers or something like that. But let me show you. Lacy. Lacy nibbles. But that one's huge and all butted up. We have this gorgeous Nepeta here that's in bloom. Oh, you guys, I love it. We have some grasses planted back there, which are kind of camouflaging in with our our daffodil foliage. Oh, but it is just so, so nice. And we can, you know, we're pretty far away from the canopy of the trees. So we can swap out our little coffee table here, this little bench for our fire pit and just sit out here and enjoy the warm weather and the sunshine and read and talk and hang out and enjoy all of the beauty that's around us. All this gorgeous Vermont nature. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been so much fun to put a video together like this. Very different from our typical videos, which are usually kind of like a one and done. But I hope you enjoyed this. Please like this video if you like. It's just my husband and I and we're hoping to grow this small channel. It's been really, really fun to connect with you. So thank you and we will see you again very soon. Okay. Bye. Happy reading.