After some advice :)

Hey all,

Moved into a new build about 14 months ago, so had a clean slate as far as the garden was concerned. We finished garden in May last year , and got all the nice little plants in the gound.

It did look really neat, but over the months things have erupted, I have plants eating other plants, things messily merging together, and the wind has in general made it all look a sad sorry state. I planted 2 of everything, with a central plant to break it up, it seems plants of the same species are growing better than each other on certain sides.

I am planning to leave the central area untouched, but was going to dig everything up either side and move it about with the small ground hogging plants moved to the corners and the plants that have turned into bushes given more space and moved more centrally.

Sitting here, I am now wondering if it will be easier to just replace the lot, now I know how big things will grow in the areas provided I can provide the correct amount of growing space. After I have moved the big plants from the corners I will still move the existing smaller plants like Dianthus Deltoids there as I really liked the carpet of red and I want them safe from being consumed by the larger plants.

Cheers

 

Do you have any pictures Adam?
I'm probably not, actually definitely not as experienced as others on here but it sounds to me like you just need to thin out the plants that are out of control and move a few things around, starting again could be costly.

 

I'll have to get some tomorrow, I have some photos of when it was all "young" and it looks nice and neat and small. I'll take some photos of the sorry looking mess tomorrow and give some comparisons

 

Hi Adam

Plants do have a tendency to grow! I really wouldn't throw anything out, as that would be such a waste of a plant and money. Post up plenty of photos and name as many plants as you can and we will help you re- arrange, redesign and re-position what you have and then you can spend what you have saved on new plants.

What type of look are you going for? Perhaps post some pictures of your ideal garden?

 

I don't think one is ever in control of a garden Adam. Or the elements that bless or curse it. It's the fun of the challenge and the buzz that you get when something fires up your heart. It never looks like it did at the beginning.
Look forward to seeing your piccies,
Jenny namaste

 

I think I made the mistake of seeing the nice little plants in their pots and not taking into account how big they actually will get. But having said that, plants at one end are not as big as plants at the other end.

For example, one end the marguerite plant has swallowed everything, even the lavender is struggling against it. yet at the other end of the flower bed, the same plant, bought and planted at the same time is half the size.

In each corner of the flower bed I have a small bottlebrush tree with bluebells and giant snowflakes planted behind it, planted either side is a lavender bush, planted directly infront and inbetween the lavender is the marguerite (kind of hoping it doesn't make it through the winter).

Moving along I have a
lavender
Cotton lavender (you seeing a theme here? lol)
rose delight,
Euryops (struggling against the cape daisy),
cape daisy (seems to be dying back now, and secretly hoping it doesn't make the winter),
wall flower,
dianthus deltoids
fuschia,
Aubrieta kite blue
Small bush
and then the same as above on the other side of the bush.

My plan is to dig up the rose delight, dianthus deltoid and Aubrieta kite blue and plant them around the bottlebrush trees, this would of course mean digging up the lavender (which is looking quite bad) and also digging up the marguerite if it survives. I would then move the lavender away from the corners and put the marguerite plants in pots.

Probally hard for you to visualise, so here is the flower bed before they all grew up lol

 

OOOh ,
so very sweet and goody goody - just like little children! And we all know what happens when little munchkins grow don't we now?
Jenny

 

Very interesting Adam, did you like the planting just as it was in these pictures, nice and tidy, evenly spaced and under control?

The reason I ask is I suspect you have a very specific style of garden in mind, just to throw some words at you - Clean lines, minimal, unfussy ?

How do you feel about colour?

 

yes they turn into little terrors and run wild

 

It's a very nice spot you have there I think you just need to allow a little more room for your plants to grow/plant less plants. I have made the exact same mistake myself year in year out, I go to the plant shop to buy a plant or two but and I'm dazzled by the variety of plants and soon forget that my border is limited in size so end up constantly having to rearrange my garden as it grows.

 

I like all those words , but I don't mind the fact the bushes get bigger, it just took them to actually get big before I realised everything was now planted in the wrong place.

I do like colour, and most of what I selected was to encourage bees, now its all bigger I can see that I should have actually planted the rockery plants around the trees, I also think the little bright red deltoids would look good under the red bottle brush flowers.

This is the first garden that has been "mine" so is a learning curve for me, some plants I have decided while nice are not for me in the limited space I have (marguerite and cape daisy) but the rest I am happy with, just not in their current location.

I guess the fact it is winter and everything is looking sorry for itself doesn't help as it seems like only yesterday the garden was as seen in the photos above

I did enjoy the whole process of deciding where things go and planting, and am dreading the spring as I will end up having to buy loads of pots to accommodate the urge lol

 

you are in the same situation as me, I have just had my first summer season and I also want to move quite a lot of plants around. Your suggestions sound sensible but someone more experienced than me will pitch in soon.

 

That is easily rectified with bulbs and tubers.
Colchicum
Cyclamen
Crocus
Iris reticulata
etc, etc, etc

Check this out......................

RHS Plants and Flowers book

It is divided into sections - trees, shrubs, bulbs, herbaceous perennials etc. Each of these sections is divided up into season sections. In turn these sections are further divided into size sections with these sections being divided again into colours. Invaluable book if you want to plan your garden, and that is a very good price. It's a heavy book with over 700 pages.
Coupled with this...................
RHS A-Z encyclopedia of garden plants..................you'll have everything you need. Here is one (collection only) in Kent.