book/website recommendation to plan plants

Hi Guys,

I've had 2 years here now and slowly been doing work on the garden. Its come along nicely and I have been doing a little at a time to see how it develops. My back garden is north - east facing. I've a few plants in the 2 beds, but for the past 2 years, they have flowered around the same time and thats been the end of my display. I need to learn about different plants and bulbs that I can put in as well, so I have a longer flowering period.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good book or website that I can use to learn about this?

 

mz - that's a lifetime's job. But this is a useful site that might help. http://www.thegardener.btinternet.co.uk/diaryaugust02.html

My own approach has also been to find plants that flower for a long period of time as well. That's another lifetime's job. Some plants can flower for 3,4,5 and even 6 months of the year. If you fill you garden with these and have early and late flowering plants as well, you can get a lot of colour over a long period of tiime.

 

This might be a daft question, but do you dead-head the flowers? I only discovered the wonders of dead-heading just this year, and it has extended the flowering period very significantly.

 

thanks guys, some nice ideas. I do deadhead, but probably not as often as I ought to, I try to go round the garden around once a week and chop off the dead flowers though. I have been much better this year at cutting plants back once they are done as well as my partner brought me about about how that helps them to grow underground etc (but I have been careful with this as still worry that I might chop something that is not supposed to be chopped!

 

Both the RHS and BBC Gardening websites have search facilities that allow you to put in your conditions, such as north east facing, part shade, seasonal interest, colour etc and they will come up with suggested plants.

The RHS Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers categorises plants by type, season and colour.

 

yes, found that on the BBC today - very handy!! Have also brought a 1000 best flowering plants in Britain book which seems very beginnery (perfect!) with info on ease to grow, setting and months you will hopefully get flowers! Seems pretty good. I am putting together a list, but am going to buy in little bits. I might even buy some seeds but I have had no success whatsoever with seeds so far, I can always try again though :-)

 

The Dr Hessayon Expert Garden book range, especially the flower one, and the tree and shrub expert, and the flowering shrub expert. I use them all the time, and I find them useful for a quick snippet of information.

When I worked for myself I used to have one of these in my vehicle, just as a memory back up.
I would look around the gardens in your area, to see what is in flower at this moment in time, and try and identify it, and then purchase it. I have been known to knock on a door to ask what plant it is!

Hope this Helps!