Advice needed on new garden border project

LeadFarmer

I'm in the process of creating a new border in my garden, which I want to plant with plants for pollinators. Any advice welcome for planing suggestions to make a nice looking longish border please. In the meantime I'll share some photos of the project I started yesterday..

I've been meaning to crack on with this project for a couple of years, but decided to finally make a start this weekend.

Decided that I wanted to increase the planted area of my garden by reducing the size of the lawn so I can make a new border. 

Here's a photo of how the garden normally looks..

And from ground level..

I'm wanting the new border to the left, whilst keeping an area of lawn to the right for our dog.

Realising that it will cost a fortune to fill the new border with plants purchased from the garden centre, I've been potting any plants up I get my hands on, and started growing lots of plants from seed in my greenhouse earlier this spring.

Decided to keep a grass path alongside the privet hedge so I can get to cut the hedge and mow up the cuttings, so yesterday I set up some strings to mark out the new border, you can just about see them here...

Yesterday I had a turf stripper delivered on hire for the weekend, a Camon TC07. I really only needed it for a couple of hours but they charge just a day rate for the full weekend, so the timings worked out well..

By the time I had realised it was cutting too high and scalping the grass, I had already done half the lawn. I wanted some strips of turf with decent soil layer to patch an area by the hedge. You'll see in the first photos there is a small crescent shaped border half way along the hedge. I removed these plants and potted them up, so I could patch the area with turf. I made some adjustments to the blade and carried on..

Having patched the area of grass that was missing up against the hedge, I stated digging over the soil by spade. Im on heavy clay but I have about a spade depth of decent soil that needs loosening up to plant in...

This is where I have stopped the for day, I have arthritis in both knees, a bad back and plantar fasciitis in one foot. I know if I carry on I will be in too much pain to continue tomorrow. It'll take me a couple of days to dig it over. I want to raise the height of the soil to give me a nice deep bed to plant it, so I'll be trailering in some manure and topsoil, and I might relay the turf grass side down (or stack it for a year for decent soil).

So in a few days I hope to have a fairly long border to plant in, and should look good next year.

LeadFarmer

So that's the project. If anyone has advice on planting structure to make the border look nice then I'm all ears. I'm considering getting a couple of metal obelisks to place in the new border, maybe get a local fabricator to make them from rebar. This will give some height, or alternatively a couple of grasses?

I'd also like a lavender hedge along the right hand side of the border, this could act as a height barrier to stop our dog walking through the border.

I also have a few potted plants on my patio, including 10 x geranium Johnson Blue ready go. Plus I've a few box balls which I might put together at the front (when viewed from the patio), with alliums amongst them?

AnniD

Blimey, to do all that with your health problems (l sympathise re the plantar), l take my hat off to you @LeadFarmer
My personal preference would be the obelisks as opposed to grasses, l think they would fit in better with the style of your garden and also give you more options when it comes to the planting. I like the sound of your other planting plans, but my only caveat would be the box balls.
I know you already have them but speaking as someone who has already removed a load of box due to caterpillars, it might be worth keeping them in pots?
It may be that you don't have caterpillars or box blight yet in your area, but it is on the increase, so just a thought.
I look forward to seeing the next stage, maybe have a tipple of choice tonight. I think you deserve it 

LeadFarmer

AnniD said:

Blimey, to do all that with your health problems (l sympathise re the plantar), l take my hat off to you @LeadFarmer
My personal preference would be the obelisks as opposed to grasses, l think they would fit in better with the style of your garden and also give you more options when it comes to the planting. I like the sound of your other planting plans, but my only caveat would be the box balls.
I know you already have them but speaking as someone who has already removed a load of box due to caterpillars, it might be worth keeping them in pots?
It may be that you don't have caterpillars or box blight yet in your area, but it is on the increase, so just a thought.
I look forward to seeing the next stage, maybe have a tipple of choice tonight. I think you deserve it 

Thank you.
My knees aren't too bad when i'm working, and neither is my plantar but afterwards after I've been sat down for a while they really ache & hurt when I get back up.

I do like the cottage garden look so there will be geraniums, foxgloves etc.
I may take you advice and keep the box balls in their pots, maybe place them at the front corners by the patio so they kind of frame the border when looking from the house.

Obelisks would allow me to grow clematis or sweat pea which will match with the look I want.

Obelixx

@LeadFarmer Have to admire your ambition and work ethic given your problems.

The RHS website has 3 lists of plants for pollinators - garden plants, wildflowers and world plants - that you can download and then research according to what suits your soil and local conditions

https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/conservation-biodiversity/wildlife/plants-for-pollinators 

Using obelisks for height is a good idea.  Grasses don't help pollinators as they are wind pollinated.

LeadFarmer

Woke up at 6:30am today so had an early start digging over more of the border. Slow work by spade but a rotator would get the depth I want....

Lizzie27

Looking good but don't overdo it. Little and often is better.

AnniD

I agree @Lizzie27 . It's wearing me out just reading about it !
Trouble is, when you're fired up to do something it's very difficult to pace yourself (speaking for myself). Today I'm still trying to get the energy up to go and do some weeding 😊.
Project = enthusiasm. 
Weeding = not so much.

andrewnewton

You've done brilliantly so far and I'm sure it will look fantastic when you're finished. My tip would be to try and get a long flowering season so that the insects / bees always have something available. I don't know if you are interested but Sarah Raven's podcast next week is specifically about bees and plants if that's of any interest ? https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNjQ0MzEwLnJzcw?ep=14

LeadFarmer

I'll try and remember to listen to that podcast, thank you.

Hope to have finished digging it over by tomorrow morning. The soil is so compacted that I'm having to kind of double dig, lifting out solid blocks of soil with each spadeful, and tipping them out onto the soil in front of me. The hardest work then having to break up each block. I'm laying the removed turf grass side down at the bottom of each trench that I dig, with the next lot of soil being thrown on top of the turf.

Digging out compacted soil makes it double in volume so whilst I wanted to raise the levels, it's far too high at the moment. Hopefully it will settle and I may go over it with a rotavator.

I fancy getting a couple of tall metal obelisks made up like this one..

Obelixx

Elegant, but for clematis you'll need far more cross wires to help them climb and clothe it but you could add that afterwards with ordinary garden wire.