Gardening

ThePrettyDamned · July 13

I love it. I have a couple of allotments (doing very poorly this year, due to cold weather and excessive rainfall) and love every minute I'm there.

Now I have a garden though, and it's incredible, a canvas for ideas. It has some very well established shrubs and trees, such as a gorgeous red robin, huge cherry laurels and a central portuguese laurel in a short tree/lollipop shape.

We are going to shrink down the red robin and laurels - they are huge, but there is a huge amount of bed space underneath them, begging for more colour and movement. Does anyone have advice on what we could start with sowing this time of year/august/September? There) the ground will, of course, be poor - the roots of these shrubs will be extensive, so we will be mulching with some compost to sow into to give our seeds a good chance. We like purples, whites, soft pinks, yellows.

Initial ideas are daisies, lavender (we have a few I will be taking cuttings from), delphinium, aquiligia, peonies (not from seed of course), roses from cuttings, liatris spicata, salvia, and perhaps some grasses.

And then seeing what does well and what doesn't!

boogieman · July 13

You’re an experienced gardener so you probably already know but lavender likes a lot of sun, though it’ll cope with poor soil and a limited amount of water. Not sure it’ll do that well if it’s in shade under your shrubs or trees? If it is shady then hellebores should do well, likewise hostas, but you’ll need to build up the soil to retain moisture as they hate being dry.

Poppies? They’ll pretty much grow anywhere… we get them self seeding in the gaps between the paving blocks on our patio, likewise chamomile.

ThePrettyDamned · July 13

boogieman said:

You’re an experienced gardener so you probably already know but lavender likes a lot of sun, though it’ll cope with poor soil and a limited amount of water. Not sure it’ll do that well if it’s in shade under your shrubs or trees? If it is shady then hellebores should do well, likewise hostas, but you’ll need to build up the soil to retain moisture as they hate being dry.
Poppies? They’ll pretty much grow anywhere… we get them self seeding in the gaps between the paving blocks on our patio, likewise chamomile.

Sun won't be a problem - the shrubs are huge but we're basically going to pollard them and gain about 2.5 - 3m of bed space (!) - and have them as a backdrop against the fence, rather than the main attraction.

Good shout on hellebores and hostas. We'll be manuring the soil in winter, so moisture retention should improve, although we are on a clay subsoil so it's actually not as bad as it seems - just the trees and shrubs are thirsty

boogieman · July 14

Ah, fair enough.

Alchemilla? It does well on clay and gives good ground cover, it’ll self seed and spread too.

Roses love clay, so cuttings will be a cheap option. Our favourite is Chandos Beauty… lovely colour and the scent is superb. It honestly smells like sherbet.

Heucheras are good plants, lots of different colour variations and they spread nicely. We’ve got a bed at the front of the house that gets very little direct light and is always pretty damp. (We’re on very heavy clay here too). We’ve planted it up with heucheras and hostas and they’ve done really well. We did have a problem with slugs originally as they also love the shade and damp, but I discovered a frog living there recently and it seems to be keeping them under control.

We’re also currently getting our back garden knocked into shape. It was basically a bog standard rectangle when we moved here three years ago, with lawn in the middle and beds round three edges. There were huge conifer hedges round two sides that took up masses of bed-width and blocked out a lot of light. Those have gone now, I’ve made the lawn more into a curved shape and I’ve mostly finished the hard landscaping. I’ve put in some arches, a paved patio area with a pergola and a gravel pathway. Now there’s just a decking area left to build. Hopefully all the beds and soil structure will be sorted this year so we can get all the permanent planting done by next spring. I’m looking forward to the stage where I’m just planting a few annuals to fill in any gaps, cutting the grass and doing a bit of weeding.

ThePrettyDamned · July 14

Sounds lovely!

Ours is not a boring rectangle at all - it's very well established, lined with trees and mature shrubs. The red robin we're cutting back, for example, is a good 3-4 metres tall - and wide! All from one trunk. We are pollarding it hard - it will be just a skeleton by the end of the day tomorrow, with all branches coming over the bed removed. However, it should survive and still make a leafy backdrop - and if it doesn't, the skeleton will be a beautiful frame for a climbing rose we bought today, and sweet peas next year.

Today we got a few plants - a climbing rose, a jasmine (which will climb the shed), a couple of campanula (one blue, one white) and a anenome. All beautiful, soft blues, purples, whites and pinks - and all hardy perennials. I'm not convinced campanula will do well there but we'll see.

Heuchera is a fantastic shout - some gorgeous colours and good for ground cover. I'll look into alchemilla as well - it would be nice to have something low lying around the edge of the lawn.

We have a couple of hidcote lavender, which are going in the front of this border to spill out. I've taken a lot of cuttings of a lovely pink lavender that was out front, in shade - thriving well enough, though. I hope several take.

We really enjoy scented gardens, and gardens with movement. Our new one has beautiful trees and shrubs, but it's quite static as a result. I want to see things come up, flower, die back, and especially move in the breeze.

I thinned apples the other day, and will thin the pears tomorrow. The apple tree is proper leaning, but it's got real character. I've got a bramley and a second pear to go in the ground as well - perhaps another job for tomorrow. I'll keep them pruned small.

Very few flowers here at the moment. It's very green!

ThePrettyDamned · July 14

On the plus side, the compost heap at my allotment went from half full to totally full after cutting down about 1/4 of the photinia today!

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