Getting ready for planting now...

Ok, garden data:
PH is a dead certain 8.0 - measured at the weekend.
Soil (structure) is not as bad as I thought - when I dig after a bit of rain the spade goes in like a knife through butter. I forked in some soil improver, compost and farmyard manure, will spread bark chips all over the area. The garden gets lots of sun from about 8am onwards (that's in summer, say 10am onwards in spring). Soil is clay, very very dark. I removed the weed roots down to a depth of about 40cm - nothing left down there!

Any plant suggestions that will DEFINITELY grow (unless completely neglected) to get us off to a good start and will encourage us to keep going? We are especially looking for easy to grow climbers and tall growing shrubs and perennials for a flowering border that will be about 2m wide by 10m long and "squeezed in" between a 6ft high fence and a gravelled and slabbed seating area.

As always, open to suggestions!

 

Most climbers enjoy the sun, but like to have their bases shady, so youcould grow most of them in your conditions, but remember to underplant with something that will shade that area. Clematis, honeysuckle, winter-flowering jasmine - how's that for a start on those? If you've got a local Morrisons, they were doing nice-looking climbers at about �£1.49 a little while ago - worth a look?

Re tall-growing shrubs - are you thinking evergreens, or deciduous flowering ones? Or a it of both? For a combination of those things, there's escallonia, which is evergreen with usually pink flowers - see the plant ident q from Sarah in her garden a few days ago -(can't remember which of the 2) - there was a nice one there, with yellow new growth in the leaves. I've seen them growing as a fairly tall bush - easily 3-4 feet, and as a climber, easily above door height!
Have fun!

 

Yeah thinking a bit of both - some nice flower display for the warm months when we will be spending more time outdoors, and for the winter still some evergreen stuff nice to look at. I think ivy might be doing extremely well in our conditions - on preparing to dismantle the old shed and removing a lot of hopelessly overgrown brambles from behind it I found a long piece of ivy I did not know was there - it grew happily under the brambles and halfway underneath the shed! I am hoping to get it out fairly unscathed and replant it elsewhere, and take quite a few cuttings for propagation - do you think I will be able to get it out or will the roots be to widespread and damage to big if I dig it up?

 

Damaging ivy takes a bit of doing!! You shouldn't have a problem with it. When you're pulling it up, you're bound to see some points where it ahs grown roots, or the beginnings of some. If you bury those bits in soil, and firm it in, it'll grow from that point, and you'll have even more ivy!! It does it naturally all the time, and is a swine to get rid of. It gets heavy, but if you keep it in check, it'll be fine - but not on your walls, it doesn't do the surface any good, and if you remove it it leaves marks on the walls. It's a thug, but good in the right place.

I think Weigela would suit you as a deciduous flowering shrub - nice variegated leaves, and more flowers (sorry, pink again, usually!)

Have a look on the RHS plant-selector site, if you feed in the info about your garden and what sort of plant you'd like (shrub, climber, etc) - it'll give you a list with pics and how to look after them
http://www.rhs.org.uk/rhsplantselector/index.aspx

 

Well as you said you like yellow how about - Rhinegold conifer for a bit of structure (slow growing so you would have to give it some space) Rudbeckia for late yellow flowers. aconites (flowering now) thee is a lovely gold sambuca ?aurea?

 

P.S. - out of one long piece of ivy you can get lots of new ones, if you follow the instructions here
from http://jksalescompany.com/ken/prop.html

the way I described above is layering, btw!

 

Euphorbia polychrome - good strong spring yellow, there is a small berberis in a vivid gold/yellow (easy) Doronicum good strong yellow daisy flower in early spring - plant with late flowering phlox and you get two for the price of one in the same spot!

 

The sort of garden which I like... It is not so easy to mix shrubs with perennials in my experience as the shrubs can take up a lot of space as well as moisture. For perennials I like to grow Hemerocallis, Irises, Nepeta, some Salvias (hardier varieties) plus a number of the older garden flowers; Paeonies/Delphiniums?Aconitum dependent on you colour choice and whether you want early /late flowering.
Am a big fan of Christopher LLoyds books and the RHS site reccomended by Dendrobium.

Enjoy.

 

I am a great fan of Christopher Lloyd and greatly admire his "succession Planting for adventurous gardeners". He reccomends "anchor" plants which are usually shrubs which give all round colour mixed with perenials. this seems to work very well for him.

 

He was a Great Man and Gardener....Loved him...

]www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/today_in_your_garden/christopherlloyd_index.shtml[/img]
Worth watching if you can find it on BBC Gardening site

[ 11. April 2006, 09:37 PM: Message edited by: roders ]

 

sorry could not get link - but just went to amazon and bought another of his two books AAhhhhh....
He was a musician (as am I) so got "well tempered gardined" will have to see how it compares to Bach!
not bark