New Gardener out of my depth!

Don't try to compete with the orange, add another element. Digitalis ferruguinea is fantastically architectural and a total contrast............
Digitalis ferruguinea by longk48, on Flickr

Digitalis ferruginea by longk48, on Flickr

Digitalis laevigata is not as tall but similar..............
Digitalis laevigata by longk48, on Flickr

Both are great cottage garden plants and unlike the common Foxgloves happy in full sun. Also, what about Lobelia tupa.............
Lobelia tupa by longk48, on Flickr

Lobelia tupa by longk48, on Flickr

 

I love that digitalis ferruguinea longk.....a fantastic plant I must have.
I grow a couple of lobelias but not tupa. Another beauty tempting me

 

Bah unfortunately I’m trying to get rid of the foxgloves in the back garden, there is still one or two and they keep blowing in from the front garden where I have quite a few, I do love them but I love they could hurt the dogs so trying my best to keep them out of the back, not that I think they would eat them but better to be safe than sorry.

Speaking of self seeders it looks like my front garden caught a couple of snapdragons from a neighbor and I really love them!!! I suspect there where more but only 2 made it past my weeding to grow into full size plants. I know they are annuals but I’m hoping they have spread their seed so I can have more next year.

How do people avoid weeding the stuff they want to keep? I’ve got a few annuals and biannuals such as the foxgloves in the front I want to keep around and but I’m scared I’ll weed them all? In the same vain, a lot of the perennials I’ve planted are herbaceous is there a trick to not accidentally weeding them as they emerge in spring?

 

Experience! Just be cautious, while you're building it up. Leave some at least of the dead growth on the herbaceous perennials, until new begins to emerge - tenderer ones will prefer this anyway, as it gives some frost protection, and it will also provide shelter for wildlife. Or you could mark the position with a cane.

And with new stuff you can't identify emerging in spring, again err on the side of caution. As you build up experience recognising the weeds at an early stage will become second nature - you can also get charts, I used to have one pinned up inside my shed. NB that the first couple of leaves a plant produces can look very different from later growth - also very noticeable if you start growing stuff from seed, too.

 

Good stuff from Clare
..l..I was about to suggest marking plants with a short cane too.

The other thing is to acquaint yourself with how the foliage looks now and try to ID it when new growth begins next year. Yes, it comes with experience but it is surprising how you will remember

A mulch too will help identify a plant plus a label. A mulch will also help prevent any weeds emerging there

 

Take a look here...............

Foxgloves, Digitalis - The Botanic Nursery

Seeds and plants available.

Being a prairie plant it prefers things drier than other perennial Lobela.

 

Fascinating longk.....thanks

 

Ok I have decided that the borders need a serious re-organise, they are currently a mish-mash of “stuff”


At the weekend I’m going to take a look at the perennials I have and catalogue the ones I have in the back garden and add any I know I want to move from the front. I know I can put them together in better sets than I have right now. My borders are quite spotty right now, but that’s because I wanted to see how much room I had once the plants I’ve got, reached a mature size. Most of the plants are multiples of at least 3, many are multiples of 6-10.


So a couple of things to consider….

• I’m struggling with the peonies, they do look beautiful in flower and I don’t really want to risk killing them by moving them but they really seem to limit what I can put in the bed, where they live. They are planted right in the middle of the beds and take so much space and are just foliage during the summer. I’ve found anything small you plant next to them looks lost, so anything planted next to them needs to big/tall enough to make an impact in it’s own right. Because they really do dominate the bed with a ton of greenery and I’d like to have some colour in those beds.
• 
  
• I intend to leave any of the original residents, Peonies, Roses, Agapanthus, passion flower and some weird little cabbage things (which I may at some point try and identify) In their original homes because I don’t want to risk killing things that have lived at the house for longer than I have.
• 
  
• So the only originals I will be messing with is the geraniums/crocasmia which both need thinning out and taming. I don’t plan to move them, just neaten them up and bring them under control. Perhaps split them a little so I can get other colours mixed in with them.
• 
  
• I have some veronica a pink and a purple that I want to split. It’s just finishing flowering now, when can I split these and is it just as simple as cutting them in half? They are about 2ft diameter each, how many pieces can I split them into?
• 
  
• When is the best time to actually move things about? Most of the plants are still young so very few are doing much flowering this year and many have only been in the ground a month or so and are still laying down roots. I want to move them while I can still identify them haha.

 

Hiya KTSJ

Hmm! I know exactly what you mean about peonies. You CAN move them....bit of a fallacy about moving them. They look good in flower but their foliage is nothing special, in fact quite unattractive as summer progresses. Here I grow just a couple but they are placed where summer shrubs can grow over them....however, bear in mind peonies resent too much shade in summer.....and not prominently in the summer border. They are not really comfortable bed fellows with other plants

I also grow an aster, Frikartii Monch, in front of a peony. It is quite late forming foliage and only now flowering.....the peony has had plenty of sun so far and now hidden by this most beautiful aster. So, I would move the peony, despite your reluctance,to a sunny, well drained position but not in a dominant spot. You then have a nice clean border in which to plant stuff you really like in the summer months.

Geraniums....you mean the hardy sort?....are best trimmed back. Here i do this in mid summer, the foliage and flowers return in a matter of 4 weeks or so and continue into autumn on compact bushes.

Crocosmias....hard to kill!! They make very large plants, too large in my opinion, and start producing more foliage than flowers. Dig up a clump of two, slice into 2, 3 or more largish pieces and replant elsewhere. Remember they grow large so back or near the back of the border. You can also display them better by discreetly staking the flower stems....this really transforms them into quite neat specimens.

Veronicas....yes, easy to divide and they are better for it. Keep sizeable pieces, pot up some to plant out exactly where you want them in summer and replant the rest. Very, very easy. Yes, if flowering is over or nearly then divide now as you suggest yourself.

Now is a very good time to divide and move perennials......as long as you remember 2 things; to water well for a week or two and to cut all the foliage off. The big advantage in doing this now is you can see exactly where you want them and can see them in association with plants already growing there. In fact, because the soil is warm now and for the next few weeks they will establish quickly and help produce better plants for next year

No problem whatsoever moving and lifting newly planted stuff.....they wont notice a thing

 

Thanks!


I do feel really bad for not loving the peonies, but they feel like such a waste of space. So many other plants give so much better/longer blooms for far less space. I just feel they are lovely for a week then a total waste of good soil for the rest of the year. I do really feel guilty, I know other people love them but I just don’t and I have something like 8-9 of them in the garden and that’s after already culling half a dozen smaller ones and they do really dominate the whole of the of the back half of the west border it makes it very difficult to plant around them. I may just bite the bullet and pull a couple out… I feel bad and I’ll have to hope the husband doesn’t notice, because he’s against pulling out ‘free’ plants he’ll just see it as space he’s got to pay to fill back up again haha.


Yes the geraniums are the hardy sort, not sure how many plants… actually im not sure if the plants even know where one ends and the next one begins. On the picture of the house, under the window I have a border about 10ft long that is ALL Pink geranium. The geranium also continues all along the wall right upto where the crocasmia starts (You can just see the edge of it on my crocasmia photo). It’s pretty but there is a lot of it. It’s the one spot in the garden that doesn’t get loads of sun though so im not sure what I should plant to fill in the gaps if I try and break it up abit.


On the Crocasmia, I think the plan is to let it finish flowering and then I’m going to dig the lot up. Some I will plant back roughly where it is (But closer to the wall so I can put something in front of it. I was looking at it last night and if you lift up the front leaves lying on the floor, you can see that alot the bulbs are growing on the concrete flagstones of the patio and aren’t actually in the border! They seem to be rooting down between the flags. So that lot are going for starters.


Over all it sounds like I’m going to be busy this weekend! My husbands going to think I’ve lost my mind when I start digging all the plants up I’ve spent the past 4 months planting. When you say cut off the foliage? How much?really all of it? That sounds harsh!

 

Whisper it KTSJ .....ssh! Confession time; I only grow a couple of peonies here because I can say I have them but, really, I feel as you do, viz., they are a waste of space when compared to other things that can be grown there.
Mind you, the 2 I have do look good early in the year....they are at the top of the garden ....for a couple of weeks

You can do better than a 10' row of pink geraniums......sounds like Russell Pritchard or Wargrave Pink that do spread a bit. Better in groups I think. Cut the foliage right back, everything, and then dig out what you dont want leaving clumps of a couple of feet or so, still plenty when they flower next year (they will more than double then). Lots and lots of plants for shade so not a problem. Ferns, asters, rudbeckias, ......consider even a couple of grasses.....evergreen heucheras, shrubs, etc etc. You can make that area a whole lot more exciting and attractive all year round

When you lift the crocosmias dig over thoroughly and try to collect all the little corms you see. They all root and grow. Try to dig deeply to get rootballs out entirely. When you have dug over and searched, do it again. Maybe spray with glyphosate around the flagstones.

Ha ha......"harsh"? Sounds like it I know but most perennials are tough and will re-shoot very quickly...you will be surprised. They will produce good fresh foliage and have had a clean up too and if you tickle in a granular fertiliser they will grow even better.

 

I just googled the names you gave on the geraniums, I’m pretty sure it’s wargrave pink, as looks exactly like it on the pictures I found I’ll give it a good chop back and I might see what I can find to plant in the spaces.


Any tips on figuring out what plants will play nice together? My main plan is to try and reduce the patchworkness by planting the same things close to each other so they look more like one clump rather than a mad mixture. Mostly I just want it to look abit more like I’ve thought about where things should go rather than dumping them in the first hole I found… which to be fair is exactly what I did haha.

 

Well, give every plant decent space to fill out. Nothing worse than squashing plants.

If youre keeping Wargrave Pink....it is a nice plant.....I would plant a couple of hellebores (orientallis type) too. They are evergreen, singles, doubles, white, pink, red, purple, yellow...I even have black! They send up masses of flowers in late winter and then for several weeks.
Lupins would look good there too.
I already mentioned aster Frikartii Monch....it is a beautiful plant with lavendar blue flowers over a long period.
Penstemons too...they are evergreen and produce lots of flowers.
Nepeta, Six Hills Giant is a good one, has summer long blue flowers
Right now rudbeckia Goldsturn is in flower and will be right into autumn....goes perfectly with the aster mentioned.
Do you want to add any shrubs? Even small ones to add some structure there?

 

I’m starting to think your obsessed with that aster haha, would it not grow too tall under the window? I did look at it and your right it’s very pretty I can get one from Sarah raven (or is there a better place to buy) but they arnt delivering till October.

I do have some lupins I could relocate they are on my list I also I’ve rudibeckia at least I have some pots ... I know some of the are rudbeckia and some are echinacea primadonna ... my dog helped with the gardening and pulled out the labels so o don’t know which is which... which is the reason they are still in pots, the rudibekia was supposed to be for the front garden and I don’t want to plant the wrong one in the wrong place

 

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