gardening advice plant choices

hi all, i dont know much about the different types of plants and flowers and shrubs and i am looking for lots of advice. i recently planted a 300m yew hedge and its doing well. i now have a large space between the building and the hedge and i want to add some flowerbeds or plant beds or shrubs and heathers. i dont have a clue where to begin and i dont know what happens after i buy a "plant". does it continue to grow new plants or does is just get bigger itself. can you use cuttings from one plant to make another? my basic idea is to cover the area in grass and add in some flower bed areas with plants or whatever and i have lots of rocks i can add for decoration.

i will list what i like and hopefully you can advise me from there:

rocks and boulders and gravel in amongst plants and grass
flowers that keep going every year
evergreen miniture trees that stay quite small
heathers for colour and longevity
any other plant that gives good value for money

low maintainence is important.


thanks for the advice

 

Hi there,
Welcome to Gardener's Corner.

Can you tell us a bit more and maybe include a photo of the site? How much space is there between the building and the hedge and how high are they both?

 

Photo would help a lot

Do you have any Azlaeas and Rhododendrons in gardens near you? Heathers (mostly) need the same soil (i.e. Acid) as them

You're a man of means and patience

Would clipping them, as Topiary, do? or are you looking for slow growing conifers perhaps?

 

the building is 6m high at the walls and 9m high at the roof ridge. the building is 40m x 40m and the hedge is 75m x 75m. its all quite square so i thought a 5m diameter round bed at each corner would look nice against the squareness of everything else. i have a 22 ton digger so i can modify the soil if nessessary. we dont have gardens nearby. i am leaning toward slow growing conifers but can you clipping any or most trees to keep them lower and wider? in that case i may plant some hedging plants bareroot as they are very good value as are the heathers. i also want to plant some trees in their own right in a small gravel bed and want them to stay quite low as well. i dont want anything to over shadow the building. how do i add flowers into this mix? are they best planted by seeds or bulbs? i also want to plant something in planters for the courtyard inside the building and have no idea what to go for.
thanks for all the advice - i wish i new more or there was less choice!

 

on another point does anyone have advice on a good grass seed to use?
thanks

 

Depends on what you want to use the grass for?

 

Some thoughts:

A lot will depend which direction this lots faces. North will be harder as it will be in shade.

Hedges (young now, but once they are big) take a lot of the goodness, and moisture, out of the soil. its hard to grow anything near them.

Not all "trees" respond well to trimming to keep them small and in shape. If you want to have a clipt-bush (i.e. a topiary) then your best bet is to start with a plant that will be happy being clipped, and then choose one suitable for the finished height/size of the effect you want. You can plant a dwarf plant, but they grow very slowly, so it will be some time before it reaches a size of some merit (whereas a Topiary will grow at normal speed, but then be kept in check by clipping, although that is a task that will need doing once or twice a year)

Flowers can look nice with a dark green backgound (i.e. provided by the Yew hedge backdrop). You could also go for something more formal - for example a 2' high hedge in a dark-red / purple leaf colour right up against the Yew hedge.

22 Tonne digger sounds impossible to manoeuvre into the garden? I use a 6 tonne 360-degree track digger for creating hard landscaping, and preparing for hedges etc., and the one thing that is not is "subtle" !!

 

its not really a garden ie. for one property. its a block of flats with a communal space all around. the hedge will be several meters from the planting. the building is square in shape as is the garden so all the beds will be in a different place to receive the sun. you may recall that i got advice on the hedge on here last year.

 

just want it to be grass. is wont be used for anything. out of curiosity what are the uses?

 

i dont understand what formal means in this context as opposed to informal?

 

A couple of quick observations but could take a long time to answer/suggest all that is asked about.
1. Unless you are wanting really smart lawn I'd buy the grass seed from an agricultural merchant ie NOT a garden centre. You can buy big bags ( enough to do a couple of acres for around £30 of various varieties of grass seed.
2. Make sure the ground is acid enough for Heathers. As Kristen suggested have a look at gardens in the area and see what is growing there. Some of the winter flowering varieties will stand a little lime but not the summer flowering ones. Again re Heathers they are not nearly as good re being labour free as many people think. Unless you give them a fairly good haircut annually at the right time (asap after flowering) they quite quickly begin to look extremely tatty. That presuming you don't have a flock of Grouse to keep them pruned!
If low maintenance is vital, have a look at what many supermarkets grow around their car parks. Most of the shrubs you'll see are pretty well maintenance free but the down side is they aren't very "exciting" Berberis, Lonicera Nitida, Potentilla and various varieties of Viburnum might fit the bill off the top of my head shrubwise.
By "flowers that keep going every year" I expect you mean herbaceous plants which do just that! Re maintenance of these, that varies depending on what you choose. They do need (most) to have the old growth chopped down either in the Autumn or early Spring and some need to be split up every couple of years or so to keep them flowering well. Some increase quicker than others.
Re miniature Conifers. If they are true miniatures they are usually very expensive to buy for obvious reasons and it's quite tricky to not be sold a "miniature" which in reality is just a small example of what will turn out to be a monster (have 2 of these "miniatures" in my garden which are around 30 ft!) If a small conifer is cheap to buy then it isn't a true miniature in my experience. If I was you I'd either pay a visit to the library or get your hands on some good gardening books which I'm sure will assist you through what can be a bit of a minefield if you haven't had much experiences of the perplexities of gardening! Good luck.PS formal means to me a rigid design and the garden takes on a sculptured look appropriate for grand houses and more urban settings. Informal is a softer approach with less structure, a more natural look more suited to the countryside. Of course you can have gardens which have a bit of both.This may well not be the most accurate definition but it's how I interpret the differences.

 

thanks for that. re flowers i meant actual flowers like tulips, daffodils, crocus etc etc
the dwarf conifers will be bought from a reputable supplier and they provide the ultimate height after years figure. the grass will be very cheap then, thanks for that. there will be a gardener eventually so a little maintenance will be ok. im just looing for something that will give nice colour at the moment so people get an idea thats its not a building site anymore.

 

Bit tricky "re actual flowers like Tulips....." The bulbs you have mentioned really need to have been planted some time well before Christmas, suppose you could buy some pots of Daffodils/Crocus/Tulips which will already be beginning to grow and plant them BUT this is extortionate cost wise way of planting Daffodils etc but maybe your only answer if you need an instant look! Snowdrops will be flowering very soon if not already again at this time of the year you'd need to buy them in pots. Now really isn't the ideal time to be doing that much in the garden department altho it is a good time to be planting bare rooted (usually cheaper) deciduous (not conifers) trees as long as the earth isn't frozen like concrete.Maybe someone more knowledgeable than I can come up with some bright suggestions!

 

Straight lines, clipped. So you would have a "wall" of Yew with a low "skirting board" of Red leaved "low hedge" in front, for contrast.

For informal you could plant a variety of (e.g. flowering) plants in front of the Yew hedge they will all have different shapes and sizes, and the Yew hedge will just be providing the "canvass" as a backdrop to the "picture".

You can throw money at the problem, but it still doesn't really get you an "instant garden" in my experience. It just looks new ...

I can understand the desire to convert it from building site to "loved", your best bet might be to plant some annuals for the first year. They grow, get up to height, flower ... and then die ... all in the first year. Then you could plant it for the long term next Autumn. If you have a large area look at a plant supplier to the nursery trade, like Kernock (think I've spelled that correctly) - watch out for their minimum number of trays per delivery (its not huge though, just more than the average garden would want!, you can mix trays to get to minimum order)

Perhaps plant some Ensete bananas in June - they will grow really fast - must be sheltered though, otherwise they will grow too slowly and their leaves will shred (you would have to bring them in for the Winter, but you could just do a one-year-only planting with them as "dot plants")

Shrubs (bushes) are generally a 7-year deal before they are at adult size.

Herbaceous perennials will flower in the first year, but its really year 3 before they have bulked up well. Downside with them is that (nearly all of them) die down / are cut down during the winter.

So patience is required; as the old saying goes "Live like you are going to die tomorrow, Garden like you are going to live forever"

 

Hi all, does any one know of an agricultural merchant that can supply grass seed in bulk as mentioned above (£30 for 2 acres worth)
thanks