Snork's Garden Redesign Project

It looks great snorky I am not jealous at all .
The show gardens are beautiful but not I would describe a real garden but for the hardscape, lots of plants are tricked into flower for Chelsea. I don't know how much one of them yew topiary would cost but I would of thought well into the hundreds each.

 

Thanks all. Pleased to have got the GC seal of approval! ha ha

I'll just have my dinner and do a post on here about soil etc for planting options.

Yes - I seem to like the formal/cottage mix - influence from my grandma I guess! That Chelsea garden was the first one I saw that I thought could easily translate into a real/home garden. My brain is working better now - the chap that designed it is Chris Beardshaw who does The Beechgrove Garden.

 

The new area has brought shape to the end of your garden Snorky and it all blends really well, a great job!

 

Looking good Snork

 

So next stage is to start planting. The section that needs doing are the raised beds areas first. They have been lined so the insides do not rot and have been more than half filled with 10 year old manure and topped with many bags of B&Q multi purpose compost. The lowest level has had some of the heavy clay dug out, some manure dug in and then topped with the multipurpose compost too. That far end of the garden gets the sun all day except very first thing in the morning.

I'm looking to plant to:
add height to provide a bit of privacy over that area of the garden
add some winter colour
add some structure

Style:
Formal mixed with cottage style

Colours: Purples, pinks and whites seem to be my favourite. I've got more "hot" colours in the front garden.

Plants that don't work: Roses (black spot), Lupins (they are just covered in green fly despite spraying etc), Bee balm (Monarda Pink Lace) - absolutely blighted by downy mildew.

Plants I already have: Achillea, Sedum Autumn Joy, Heuchera, Verbena, Ladys Mantle, Campanula (tall type with large white bells), Lysmachia, Pinky/Red Hebes, Orange peel plant, Echinacea Purpurea, Delphiniums,

Issues: Seems to suffer with downy mildew, heavy clay and baking hot.

Needs to be fairly easy to maintain as I've got the big front garden and the allotment to do too. Luckily, I've got all the pipework for an automatic watering system to be snaked along the ground, which I will get set up this year.

So far I've decided to plant another Clematis Armandii at the fence to grow towards the greenhouse. I've got one already near the koi pond and I love it.

On the left hand side bed (which is full sun all day, heavy clay -despite having lots of manure dug in over the last few years) I'm unsure how to redo the wooden edging. We were planning on digging up the crazy paving type pathway and the old small pond will be filled in. We were thinking of doing the same railway sleepers as a straight edge instead. The height of the grass is much lower than the height of the wall/earth, so needs to be a step up some how.

Any advice or suggestions very welcome

 

For winter colour consider hamamelis, the witch hazels. Why? Lovely scent, esp from Mollis Pallida, quirky, spider-like, fascinating looking flowers and effect in winter. For foliage colour, impact, upright narrowness and minimal attention taxus Standishii is superb all year round. Also another yew, Coppershine...this time mounded and colour changing from green/white leaves in winter to coppery orange in spring (absolutely stunning then) to bright yellow in summer; an eye catcher here.
Euphorbias for spring and winter flowers but check out euphorbia Ascot Rainbow esp for winter foliage.
For glorious scent ....mine are now pumping out powerful perfume....daphne odora aureomarginata is unbeatable; lovely winter foliage. Jasminium nudiflorum, the winter jasmine will clothe shady or sunny fences with bright yellow flowers over winter. Sarcococa, sweet box, will swamp your garden with scent from mid winter to early spring.
Hellebores of course......here they are already flowering. Evergreen foliage with white, yelllow, pink, red, purple and black flowers, some single and some double. Indispensable winter colour. Coronilla valentina citrina is a gem producing pale yellow, slightly scented flowers for a long time over autumn, winter and early spring.
For easy summer long flowering and height consider the sanguisorbas....a favourite here. Heleniums, veronicastrums, salvia uliginosa, thalictrums and cannas are also tall to very tall perennials.....mixed with grasses like stipa gigantea, miscanthus, calamagrostis and molinias.
Persicarias too are a must.
For your heavy soil, astilbes and astrantias are essential. The japanese painted ferns too....classy and beautifully coloured. Variegated phlox like Nora Leigh planted with red heucheras, red carex like Buchanii, or the red grass imperata red baron. Add the classiest of all grasses hackonechloa macra (green) all gold, macra aureola (variegated cream, yellow and green)
For long flowering ground cover consider hardy geraniums but look past the ubiquitous rozanne to Orion, Ann Folkhard, Coombland White, the delightful Elke and others.
For shade ground cover brunnera Hadspen Cream is a delight.....forget me not blue flowers on lovely variegated foliage, arabis ferdinandi coburgii too....evergreen variegated foliage and white flowers in spring.
For raised beds in sun and soil made to suit, pack a group of lavendar in. Here I have 2 hedges of them and the visual effect of them in full bloom not to mention the effect on your olfactory senses will amaze you. Another similarly raised bed could comprise a group of santolina......silver grey foliage, hardy, tactile and aromatic.
Right...some to consider for now snorky

 

Brilliant! Thanks @Verdun. I'll print that list off and google a lot of them. Thanks for taking all that time to come up with the suggestions - really appreciate it as it's really easy to get carried away and I could easily end up wasting a lot of money buying all sorts so will be good to focus on some key plants.

 

It's stunning, Snorky! Just a couple of thoughts....you've got an interesting mix of hard landscaping, but IIRC the 'experts' recommend not to have too many different materials and colours. A mowing strip around a lawn is a Godsend, saves hours of strimming/edging. Would it be practical to re-do your path with the same slabs as used for the new buildings? Set a bit lower than the grass? Perhaps with a complimentary-coloured low retaining wall or vertical edging, if the height of the border needs one. If you're going to let plants cover the edging, then it's not too critical about a different material, except perhaps in winter.
I did that in my UK garden and it did sort of 'pull it together' visually, providing a link between different parts of the garden. It also created a depth of decent soil over the clay which allowed perennials to get established. My experience of Astilbes and painted fern, for example, was pretty disastrous on clay, but in your improved soil/compost they'd probably be OK.
Your raised beds are a lovely size.....Eucalyptus gunnii is pretty, ever-silver, very adaptable to being chopped when necessary. What about Arbutus unedo 'Rubra'? Beautiful slow-growing tree that does well in improved clay and has interest all year round. There are a couple of pretty variegated Pittosporums that get quite tall..Irene Paterson, tenuifolium variegata (? probably changed names now ). As you're planting from scratch, you could put Clematis in at the same time as the shrubs or trees, to provide extra flower power.

 

Ah thank you @noisette47 Very good advice re difference materials. It feels like the left hand side border now doesn't seem to fit with anything so maybe re-doing the pathway with the leftover slabs we have would be a good idea like you say.

I like the eucalyptus suggestion too as had been looking at that earlier in the year...particularly as I thought it would look nice in a cut flower arrangement.

I'll add all your plant suggestions to the list that I've now got going and look them all up. Thanks very much for your time making suggestions too

 

Just wondering-do you think it would look better if this tree was moved?

 

For me Snorky yes. They are too close together where they are and will require regular maintenance to keep them in check there.
A better balance if oneof them moved I think

 

Thanks @Verdun I thought so too it’s good to have agreement

 

So I’ve had to clear out some of the border in the front garden and thought id transfer over a callicarpa I bought last year and a few lavenders. I made sure i added a load of grit to the base of the lavenders when I replanted them and gave them a bit of a better tidy up. I also transferred over the jerusalem sage that I got from shineyland last year

 

Sounds a good combi snorky

...resist the temptation to water lavendar though until spring. Even then only sparingly.
Here I never water lavendar and they thank me for it....they actually told me so!
Resist too the urge to tidy or trim them now too

 

Ah drats...i watered them in after planting. Only a little bit though-the soil they came out from was bone dry!

Has hardly rained here the last couple of weeks.