0/10 for garden design for me!!
Judojub
Posts: 108
Hello everybody.
I have exhausted myself today on the internet trying to figure out the best place to plant certain things so I thought I would just post a few photos and you could all tell me where I've gone horribly wrong and what can do to improve (and there is much improvment be made)
As i am a newbie I know everything is most likely in the wrong place and a seasoned gardeners nightmare!! I just want a perennial haven!!
Thank you all in advance x
0
Posts
I would dress the fences with clematis, . If you get the type that can be sheared to a foot every year, they will clothe the fences all summer, and tidy up for winter. For perennials, visit a garden centre once a month from March to September, picking something in flower each month. Bulbs then go in the gaps between the perennials.
My view: plant at least one tree. Get the 'bones' of the garden first and then think about the detail.
You have done a lovely job - top marks for maintenance. Plants love and knowledge will come with time. When you really get into plants you will find your lawn getting smaller and smaller as you extend the beds for must haves! Good idea to visit the GC every month and pick a few plants that are in flower. Read as much as you can, if there is an Open Gardens scheme round your way, go there - great source of cheap plants for local conditions.
Before you get planting, I'd take the opportunity to paint the fence. Much easier now than later.
Thank you all. Doghouse - your garden is beautiful!!
being new to all this I have concentrated mainly on getting it tidied up and ridding it of weeds and trying to make soil a bit more user friendly.
There are so many plants I like I guess it will take time. I have a buddliea planted down the bottom so I hope that will take which would add a bit of colour next to that big ?bush on the left which also has crocosmia and red hot pokers down there too and that one little section looked lovely this year! I have a couple of hedges on the right which also helps to break things up a bit
I am sure with patience and time will get there. In a few years I am sure I will be half way there!!
Yes Hosta. The fence is on my to do list
I like it, especially the edges, it looks like you cut them with scissors they are so perfect, it soothes my garden OCD soul
I'd probably add some height up the fence with clematis, camellia and chaenomeles. The last two look lovely in spring although may take a few years to mature. Climbing roses? I bought Bridge of Sighs last year and it hasn't stopped flowering all year. Euphorbia look great all winter and summer, they are real garden soldiers.
Hanging baskets add height while everything is maturing.
I'm not a fan of spring bulbs in the flower beds because the leaves look horrible for ages, I like them in pots then you can move the pots to a corner when the leaves are dying off.
Some winter interest is essential as winter is so long and it's really important to plant a winter 'skeleton,' colourful euonymous which can be clipped to a shape to keep in order and some hebe which you have. Perhaps a pyracantha which looks great in all seasons with flowers and berries, it can be clipped to shape too and doesn't need to get that big.
Tall plants at the back and shorter at the front but I often break those rules and it still looks good. I like varieties of sedum this time of year and japonese anenome which grow quite tall and take you into winter. For short plants I love lots of cyclamen and have them everywhere at the front of the border and under shrubs and trees. They will die down in summer and come back the next year.
I'm not keen on the mess some summer flowering bulbs leave behind but I do love crocosmia and leave the seed heads on afterwards, they are very graceful and colourful.
I think hellebores are essential winter flowers, they keep going all winter non stop after a couple of years and if you cut the leaves off around December so you can see the flowers (which tend to hide under the leaves) you will have flower displays right up to when your spring plants come out.
This is what I've learnt from my own garden and from this forum from the members over the past year. Still got lots to learn though, especially about making shapes with border edges which has been a bit of a disaster
I personally like straight edges and they can be softened with edging plants like geranium and alchemilla mollis which are cheap and easy to divide into new plants every year.
I will never have a garden as nice as Doghouse Riley's though