At wits end-very wet and shady garden

forgot to add yesterday that I like your fence colour! its a brilliant backdrop for lots of light and bright coloured foliage which luckily plants with that foliage generally prefer shade as well

shuttlecock ferns would really pop against it.

EDIT: just did a search on the RHS for you I set the settings at full shade, clay soil and poorly drained and these are the plants they say would work

https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/Searc...l+shade&r=f%2Fplant_moisture%2Fpoorly-drained

 

thank you all. peters- i was thinking of a raised bed of some kind. You have prompted me to look into this a bit more!
Dips-thanks you. the fence was that colour when i moved in and I had to rplace loads of panels last year and took me an age to paint!! I have just had a quick look at the link and will research more. I do have a couple of ferns there but they didnt do too well last year. I may try to remember where they are and dig them up and add some grit and sand in case they got a bit water logged I think

 

Not all ferns like it to be really wet

Its about finding the right types of each plant that will work

Im quite jealous of some of the plants you can have as mine is a very sunny garden with sandy soil so is quite dry

 

oooh- sunny garden and sandy soil. I am soooooooo jealous!! I am never happy. LOL

 

one last question if you dont mind- peters you mentioned about creating a bit more height and you suggested a plastic planter with bottom cut out? this prompted me to google raised beds and i was visualising one made out of nice railway sleepers or such like. Then I looked at the cost and as I cannot even wield a screwdriver would have to get some one to do it so even more cost. Then I came back to your thinking of plastic pots. Aesthetically not as pleasing but can it be as simple as that? I guess I could sort of half bury a tallish planter and maybe get an extra 4-6 inches which i could fill with soil/grit/sand. Would even this bit help would you say??? I dont think I could afford to make/buy planters for the whole area but if I found the biggest square plastic planters I can find and half bury them then try and disguise the front bit with plants this may look good

 

Hi Pink Pixie, thanks for your PM, we have similar taste in flowers it seems Have you ever used Pinterest? It's brilliant for getting ideas. If if was my garden I follow some of the other guy's suggestions and embrace it. I would have a large wide raised decking area (on which you have have nice pots with your favourite flowers in ) around the decked area I would go all out with the bog dwelling plants, there is plenty of choice, flagged Iris are a fav of mine. I've attached a pic of something similar so you get the idea.

 

Pixie - I think that 4 inches could make quite a bit of difference. The roots of many flowers won't go down more than 4 to 6 inches, and even if they do the bulk of the root would be less than 4 to 6 inches deep. There are various ways you could have a raised bed.

1) You could make a raised bed from scratch, with sleepers or bricks on all four sides - but that's expensive.

2) You already have a concrete back in place. You just need to have some edging at the front, and raise the soil behind it. I used a tall log roll the first time round. But after about 10 years it rotted so I replaced it with brick pavers set at an angle. I didn't set out to have a raised bed, but after a while I had put so much sharp sand, grit and compost on the borders that they raised themselves. You could also hammer some 1" x 1" or 2" x 1" stakes into the edge of the border and just place a tanalised plank of 4" x 1" behind. 3 or 4 inches is perhaps all you need. Don't worry too much about the appearance. In summer your plants may well grow over the edging and hide it - depending on what you grow.

or 3) You could use planters or pots with the bottoms removed, but it may not be that easy to remove the bottoms, which I would regard as essential. There is nothing stopping you from experimenting, trying a bit of each .

To add to the plants - the tall Lobelias are water marginal plants and would love the damp. They are very easy to propagate as you can lift and divide them at least once a year if not more. I bought just one plant and in a short time I had 60.


It might be worth trying Geranium 'Patricia' - the pink mound on the left. Its one of the best in my garden, as it forms a wonderful mound. It flowers for months on end because its a sterile hybrid - plants usually stop flowering when they set seed - but this can't set seed as its sterile. However you must buy the named variety. There are many hardy Geraniums but most only flower for a short period of time as they are not sterile hybrids. I haven't tried it in a low light area, but hardy Geraniums are woodland plants and that suggests damp and dappled shade. Note - you can't see any edging.

 

@PeterS Wow, that Geranium 'Patricia' looks amazing, may have to get one of those.

 

Thanks Val. There is a small trick I use to keep the shape. In early summer it naturally makes a mound. But as time goes by it gets bigger and flops outwards a bit sometimes leaving a bald patch in the centre. My solution is to stake it, with 4 very short stakes at the corners with a piece of string round , which keeps it upright.

I like long flowering plants, because it means you always have more colour in your garden, so the principle of using sterile hybrids interests me. "Patricia" flowers for 5 months or more, but there are some other sterile hybrids. "Rozanne" is a blue version and said to be as good as "Patricia" - though mine has never done as well for me. You still sometimes see it under the name "Jolly Bee" even though a court in the USA has stated that the two are genetically identical and the latter name should not be used. Another lovely one is "Ann Folkard", which doesn't make a mound but stays close to the ground and weaves through other plants.

There are some sterile Astrantias as well that flower for a long time. These are also woodland plants and like damp and shady conditions. I have "Buckland" nearly white, "Roma" a lovely pink and "Hadspen Blood" a very dark red. I love them.

You can't propagate sterile plants from seed of course, but they divide very easily.

 

I found a copy of this book on the weekend.
Haven't read through it yet, but on skimming, looks interesting.