Ideas for my little plot please.

Hello folks,

Right, when wifey & I moved into our house there was no garden. There was no top soil. Just hard, compacted clay which the rainwater would sit upon for days and days. Now we've laid a proper piped drainage system, brought in some topsoil and laid new turf. For the first time in two years the garden is looking half tidy.

View from the house down:


View from the rear up:


The borders are only about 2' wide and we've yet to add trellis all along both sides to climb things up to hide the rather pain-in-the-arse neightbours.

I'm liking the idea of perennials and herbacious borders to fill out the garden quickly. Can any of you suggest plants and planting schemes for me to try? By the way, wifey loves planting annuals all the time but I can't be chuffing bothered with all that sowing, pricking out and planting out all the time so I'm leaving that to her.

Any and all positive help will be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance.

All the best,
Matthew

 

Hi Matthew, your grass looks superb. My first thought is that you need something tall at intervals to break up that long straight fence. A shrub or two, would be the natural choise or even a small tree. And I would be inclined to have a grass ege that curved a bit for the same reason.

My own interest is in perennials. I like things that flower for a long time. Some of my favorites are Astrantia (in full flower for me last year for over 20 weks). Campanula porscharskyana (small 17 weeks). Centranthus ruber (can be anything up to 20 weeks). Geraniums (true perennials - not pelargonium - there are many long flowering ones - Patricia, Joy, Rozanne, Ann Folkhard, Russell Pritchard, all around 15 to 20 weeks). Salvia microphylla (small shrubby plant usually good for 20 weeks). Verbena bonariensis (also 20 weeks). Astilbe, Helenium, Echinacea, Nepeta fasenii (catmint) are all reliable hardy first class plants that don't flower for as long - but are still good for 10 weeks or more.

Sorry about the Latin names, but if you are interested use the names to Google.

 

TS it depends on how big a problem the neighbours are if it's kids climbing the fence I would go for firethorn and berberis they will encroach on your grass area a 2ft border is not wide enough, if you need just to cover the fence use some of the clematis species or for quick cover parthenocisus for something exotic looking like trumpet vine,I would break up that huge area of grass put stepping stones in a meandering fashion down to the bin area, dot some small areas about on the lawn for planting your brides annuals,which ever way you do it you're going to lose some of that grass.

 

Lots of climbers to hide those ugly fences. Have a look in your library at gardening books and see which ideas you like, contemporary or cottage garden for example. I mix and match, if I like it, it goes in :D

 

Thanks for the help so far, folks.

 

Have to say yes to plenty clematis or honeysuckle.

And I so love to see helobores ,spring bulbs camelias, I coudl go onMatthew but dont want to bore you.

A good idea if you have time go round the nurseries at different seasons to see what is in bloom so you can have colour all round.

Dont rush but you have a lovley piece of lawn growing there for you ,but yes need to get your climbers in quick again when you go down that road see when they all flower as be nice got an on going floral theme.

Good luck again

[ 09. April 2008, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: Scotkat ]

 

Matthew, What a nightmare of a shape 6 metres by about 2 kilometeres. The first thing I would worry about would be all that fence. So look at clematis, virginia creeper, boston ivy, honeysuckle, castor oil plant (if there are no kids that can get to it, even the neighbours. I understand you aren't allowed to poison them) etc. Then shrubs and following PeterS' advice maybe some bamboos. Get a couple of Eremurus robustus (but you are too late for this year). If you have this horrendous length then compensate with height. Good luck, there are worse problems

 

Hi Treesurfer welcome to the forum.

First of all I would decide (along with your wife of course) which sort of gardens appeals to you both.

Traditional, Cottage, Modern, Tropical etc. look on the web for garden design and I'm sure you will find plenty of gardens that will take your fancy.

You should also take into account how many hours you have spare to tend to your garden as some designs require far more effort and time spent on their up keep than others.

You could mix you favourite designs together it's all upto you, take your time and do it as you want it the first time out and you will be rewarded with a stunning garden that will last you many a year, in fact it can only get better as the years go by.Hel.xxx.

 

Treesurfer, in my opinion you have a great opportunity here to create 2 or 3 `rooms` by separating off different sections. You could use arches or pergolas to do this. In my opinion, nothing better than seeing a wisteria growing up a pergola. I`m no plantsman so I`ll leave others to advise you on that, but you have a blank canvas so create a little bit of heaven :D Cheers...freddy.

 

I was thinking the same as Freddy - something should go across the width of the garden to break up the length visually. And as you wander down the garden on your meandering stepping stones, you'll get a nice waft of scent from the climbing roses and honeysuckles growing up along your arches and pergolas. In summer, you can suspend some candles in glass jars from the arches which'll look ever so pretty when you're sitting on your patio drinking a glass of wine.

Have you thought of adding some raised borders along the edge for your wife's annuals? As well as adding structure, they are easy to care for and add some 3-dimensional appeal.

And how about a screen or low trellis in front of the bins? It'd improve the view from the rear of your house greatly I reckon.

 

a fruit tree at the end of the garden will look nice. A plum or apple would be good. make sure they are small tree varieties or they may get too big for the garden.

put some trailers up the fence walls with trellis, and then low lying annuals along the bottom. also, a few tall sunflowers will be great. You could even grow some peas up the wall which are really easy to sow and grow -no pricking out and they only need training with twine.

 

Re fence:

It was suggested to me to put Photinia red robin against my fence and train it to climb up. It has lovely red and green leaves and does what I like - looks good ALL YEAR ROUND. You just trim any shoots that project forwards so you end up with a flat wall of colour against the fence. So easy, even I have had a good result!

 

Well it's almost been four months and this is how it's looking so far. We're just waiting for the plants to fill out and climb before moving on to the next stage... whatever that may be!



and...



Any additional thoughts or advice that you may have will be gladly welcomed.

 

Hi Tree surfer,


The change brought by the fence colour has really cozified the garden, made it very warm looking.

I would suggest that your lawn becomes a series of overlapping circles, which should allow for a bit more scope to create seperate and individual areas, which should counteract the feeling of closeness. It is an optical illusion that can push away the sides of the fence.

 

Looks a million times better but you lack a feature....

Id consider planting a feature acer or similar to break up the lawn, disguise the back hutch and add intrest. As yove got a formal sort of garden id edge around the acer in a circle and top it off with white cobbles to set of the foliadge.

Or

How about a small water feature or pond?