The Stolen Stumpery

Once upon a time, we had a patch of wasteland just outside our garden gate, which was choked by nettles and other horrible looking weeds. It’s a shady area, as there’s an elderflower tree growing by the road which casts a lot of shade, so there wasn’t much we could do to beautify it. Then I visited a neighbour, who had a stumpery. As soon as I saw it, I realised what we could do with our bit of wilderness.

Stumperies are very like rockeries, except founded on tree stumps and other bits of wood. They were designed by the Victorians and are a wonderful backdrop to ferns.

One of our neighbours makes a living by extracting tree roots from the ground. These are usually turned into firewood or simply sent to the dump. He was happy enough to bring a few stumps around. We arranged them in an artistic, higgledy-piggledy way, then we dolloped a load of soil and compost on the top.

We then planted a few things in the nooks and crannies: a few cyclamens, a couple of heucheras, some ferns. We introduced some ground cover, like creeping Jenny and camomile, and then let nature take over. It looked a little scraggly at first. My mother was shocked by the creation of ‘that ghastly mess.’ We even received a call from a representative of the parish council, asking if we’d been the victim of fly-tipping. He sounded very doubtful when I explained what we were aiming for, and muttered darkly about having to clean it up in the event that the experiment was unsuccessful. 

How the tables have turned! Our stumpery is no longer a source of complaint. In fact, it’s universally admired. Our house is perched at the top of a very steep hill, the scourge of walkers and cyclists, and the stumpery is a little visual reward for those who make the effort to get to the top. I often see people stopping to appreciate it, and always receive bountiful compliments.