Mo & Tez's Surrey Garden

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Far Acres

There are five sections to Mo & Tez's garden:(not counting the front) Upper Acres (Patio), Side Acres (Barbecue Area), Middle Acres (Swing Area), Lower Acres (Greenhouse Area) and Far Acres (Jungle Area) as they are known in the Stokes' family! Far Acres, as its aka suggests, tends to be left to its own devices. There is a fox lair down there and a badger run crosses the boundary; squirrels live in the sycamore and slow worms slither from under the pile of old wood dumped down there long ago. As Mo says - it is left untended for wildlife - that's her story and she's sticking to it!

The Hampshire brick wall was built by John Woollard and Tez in 1989 and is a perfect accompaniment to the Yorkstone paving.

Mo & Tez and Kathryn, Rich and Daisy have had some splendid times sitting out here for breakfast, lunch and supper when the weather is right.

Mo planted the shrubs in 1991 - climbing euonymous and solanum crispum on the wall and choisya, spiraea and euonymus on the right hand side. The left-hand pic was taken around 1996 and the right in April 2009.

Mo just loves planting up the window boxes, baskets and pots and always does this on the end of May Bank Holiday weekend. She concentrates on the area by the back step which is always a riot of colour from around mid June to September.

This garden is unusual in that it is very narrow but some of the problems this brings been overcome by utilising the different ground levels. The above left hand picture was taken from an upstairs window in April 2009. Tez built the patio, barbecue in 1993 The surrounding bushes such as the hebe and ilex were planted long ago. If you need help in the garden with ideas and explanations, go to the excellent Greenfingers website.