Gardener Wannabe

Hi all

I hope you can help.

My husband and I currently live in a flat, however next year are hoping to relocate to a house in Hednesford, Cannock.

I've always wanted to get into gardening but have never had the chance before.

With my new garden, I would love to create a shabby chic style garden. very cottage like i.e. lots of wild flowers, trailing plants up trelis, creating canopies etc. But, I have no idea where to start, or even if the soil type in the Hednesford Hills is appropriate for this type of plant?



I really need some experienced gardeners to point me in the right direction As soon as purchase our new home I can post photos of the space we have to work with and the exact positions of any existing plants etc.

Thanks for your help,

 

Welcome to gardeners corner HJS86 I think your find what your looking for here at gardeners corner there's lots of experienced people who will be more then willing to help you with your quest for a new garden!

as far as I can see there's not one plant in that photo that wouldn't like being in most places in the UK

 

Hi both

Thanks so much for the warm welcome. Can't wait to move and start with the transformation - will be posting lots of progress photos! Can't wait to have the garden I've always wanted; I want to potter!

Armandii - can you please post a link to your thread re Retreat, I can't find it. Thank you

 

Do you mean this one HJS86?

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/general-gardening-discussion/35863-armandiis-retreat.html

 

Hi everyone

Well its been a very long time since I posted here and much has happened! We were lucky enough to buy a house in the location we wanted and it came with a huge back garden oh and I had a baby! So don't have bundles of time anymore, but would still like to potter in the summer and create a pretty, safe garden for our little baby girl.

The garden is much more developed that I was expecting, so I'm looking for more advice on how to improve/maintain it as I honestly have no clue what I'm doing.

Its obviously February now so I know I need to start doing stuff ready for the spring/summer.

I''m attaching some piccies of some plants that are already in the garden. Would you mind identifying them and letting me know what I'm to do with them at this time of year? Sorry, COMPLETE beginner here. Some of these plants might even be weeds!!

Pic #1 - This long leafed plant - hasn't done well during the winter months. Do I dig it up completely, or cut it right back to its base? Will it grow back in the summer?



Pic #2 - This plant had beautiful purple flowers on in the summer. Again, do I need to tear it down and cut it to the base?



Pic #3 - Anything need doing with this one? Cutting back? Attaching to the wall as its leaning closer and closer over the lawn?



Pic #4 - Not sure whether this is a weed?



Many thanks for your help everyone. Can't wait to get started on my now big project!

 

Congratulations on your new home and new baby!

I'm not as experienced as most on here, but, I'm guessing .... .

Pic 1 may be a montbretia? If it is, it will grow back. Did it flower in the summer?
Pic 2 may be a clematis - when to prune depends on which type it is and that can't be determined from your pic. Did it have large flowers, or small flowers?
Pic 3 I think is a photinia - it could be cut back, but not absolutely sure of the best time to prune.
Pic 4 - no idea

I'm sure those with more experience will correct me if I've given you the wrong information.

 

Congrats on the new house and baby.

I agree with Mum on 2&3.

1 could be montbretia, an iris or a day lily. Don't dig it out, I'm 99% certain it'll be back next year.

4 is a small creeping campanula, not sure of the exact species.

The photinia is leaning outwards probably because it's on a North-facing fence and it would like more light. Tough, unless you feel like digging it up. (Not recommended!) It is intimidating a small hebe underneath, by the looks of it.

The clematis could be trimmed lightly but it would hardly be a disaster if you just left alone this summer in order to try to identify it. I think it'll be a Clematis viticella or a large-flowered hybrid. Either way it won't die if you either prune or decide not to. If you look carefully at the apparently dead stems you will already see fat green buds sprouting.

The main thing to do at this time of year is tidy up dead foliage (like #1) so you can clearly see the new things coming through. By Autumn you'll have a clearer idea of what you've got and what changes you might want to make.

 

Welcome back

My Mum came from Hednesford, all I remember of the Gardens in the terraced houses in the 1960s was compacted mud & Chickens.

 

Hello and hope you like it here,

I've not been long in our new house either. I'm a beginner gardener and we had a babba too so I wish you luck.

I reckon it would be a good idea to find out what basic type of soil you have, starting with an uncultivated part of the garden or the lawn.
Here's how to test your soil by hand:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/soil_testingyoursoil1.shtml

The Hednesford Hills themselves are covered in ancient heath and because of that you get podsols: that's where the nutrients have been leached from the lower and upper soil and concentrated in narrow bands. It's not too fertile, full of sand and gravel and a little acidic. The narrow rooting zone is perfect for dwarf shrubs and stunted heath-type plants like bilberry and cowberry! 'Course, if you want wildflowers, it could be perfect since poor soil gets them blooming. Put some weed-free soil in a tub, make sure it's nice and sandy, sprinkle a packet of wildflower seeds onto the surface, sprinkle a very thin layer over just to cover them a little and keep it a little damp under the surface and you can plant them out early summer.

As for other stuff, drainage is the key. Dig a hole in the lawn two foot by two foot deep, have a look just after heavy rain and then see how long before the water disappears. Under a day is too quick and you need to dig in humus or perhaps lime. Over three days is too slow and you need to dig to break the soil up. Do you like digging? I've got heavy clay and I usually dig down 2-3 feet making new beds.

Of course, you hope the previous owner has probably altered the soil so you might find the beds are all different. As Armandii indicated, the cottage garden look is got from cramming different plants up close together and leaving no room for weeds.

That's something I didn't appreciate straight away. Weeds pounce on bare, exposed soil. Apart from mulch as a feed, I think beds look good covered in wood chips.

 

Hi everyone

Thank you so much for all your replies.

Thanks to your help I can confirm some now!

Pic 1 - def a day lily. I remember the flowers from when we first moved in during the summer.

"Tidy up the dead foliage" - sorry - pretend you're trying to explain this to a 5 year old and you're somewhere close to my gardening knowledge haha!! How do I do this? Do I cut dead leaves back to their roots? Is there something else involved?

Also, is the plant sitting below the lily, is it a weed to be removed, or another nice plant?

Pic 2 - The clematis - had big purple flowers on during the summer. I'll leave it alone til the summer

Pic 3 - I'll try and attach this to the fence to stop it falling forward so much. I'll trim the side thats bullying the little plant underneath it too.

Pic 4 - Have googled this, looks lovely! Can't wait for the flowers to show up.

At the far end of this side of the garden there is a large space where a plant must have died and its now bare. Can any of the plants above provide cuttings to plant here, or shall I just go for something new?

If new, whats a nice plant, with colourful flowers that is hardy that I haven't missed the planting season for?

Many thanks Will take some pictures of the garden in full tomorrow to start my transformation diary! Exciting!

 

How about a nice blueberry bush? You'll need to give it acid soil, but if you can do that, they are win/win. Ok flowers in spring with lush green foliage, pretty and delicious berries in summer, and crimson red foliage in autumn.

 

I'll do my best!

Day lilies are perennial plants - that means they die back to absolutely nothing each winter, then make fresh shoots in spring. So the dead foliage you see won't be needed again as it will make fresh foliage again soon. So you can grab handfuls and cut it all off right down near the soil. That way the new leaves will look all neat and dapper as they emerge from the soil.

The campanula is also a perennial (that means it lives for a number of years, dying back in winter) but it remains evergreen.

There are lots of other groups of plants but most of the ones you see coming up will be in the perennials group. The group includes many fantastic plants.

The thing below the lily is probably also a plant but I can't identify it from the pic, unless it's an erigeron karvinskianus, a sweet little daisy, well worth keeping.
http://www.wildchicken.com/nature/garden/erigeron_karvinskianus.jpg

You can usually dig up perennials (any time over the next 2 months, say)and cut them into sections. Then you can replant them to form new plants. It's a bit of work but not at all difficult. You can do this with both day lilies and campanulas. (Can a day lily expert comment on how well they recover from this?)

You haven't missed the boat for almost anything yet, it's all still to come.

I'd recommend helianthus.http://lwfperennials.com/images/Helianthus/helianthus_lemon_queen.jpg
Tough as old boots, long-lasting colour, easy to care for, bulks up quickly. Only prob is it spreads too much for some people's liking, but then you have plenty more to spread around or give away.

 

By no means an "expert" but I had a large clump of day lilies in my garden when I arrived here. As you say, they die back to nothing. So, to add a bit of winter interest to that area, I dug up the centre of the clump and put a hebe in the centre. The undisturbed area of day lily flowered as usual.

The clump I dug up, I replanted into two other areas in the garden. Last summer, I had green growth (leaves) but no flowers. This month, the green is springing up beautifully and I am hopeful that I will have flowers from them this year.

The dead foliage should literally just pull out. I usually do that in the Autumn.