Browsed by
Category: Garden Design

Design, landscaping construction and layouts. Special types of garden and notable design features

Best Pond Tips

Best Pond Tips

Water Lilies
If you are thinking and planning to get the best out of a new or rejuvenated pond than consider these quick tips

Design Tips

  • Design your pond so there are shelves around the edge of the pond for shallow and marginal plants. Water Lilies need to be planted at least 18″ deep.
  • If your pond has sheer sides you may want to grow marginal plants by submerging some staging (a weighed down inverted box). This can also be used as an escape route for amphibians to get out of the pond.
  • Keep good pond hygiene by preventing leaves and debris falling in the pond. Every two or three years have a good clean out reintroducing a small quantity of sludge at the bottom to get the process going again.
    • Locate the pond where you can see it preferably in a sunny position well away from any Pine trees. Koi fish need a shaded location.
  • Ornamental ponds may be best located in an elevated position to avoid run off filling the pond.

Book Cover

Planting Up

  • Plant in containers that you can hook out for plant maintenance. You can use a wire coat hanger on a stick if you use a basket with open loops. Invasive plants are constrained by the basket and you can rearrange the planting during the year.
  • Use good garden soil or special compost for planting and put a heavy layer of gravel on the top of the soil.
  • Unconfined plants can look more natural and are often wild life friendly but less showy as ypour best plants need to be containerised.
  • Consider a mix of Deepwater, Floating, Marginal and Oxygenating plants. Deepwater plants like cooler water and the floating leaves create this in a way that supports more life forms and restricts blanket weed.
  • Water hyacinth absorbs pollution particularly from fish waste. Skim off and compost excess plants as they multiply.
  • Bog plants and waterside plants are optional depending on your design and space. For a bog look in drier soil use Hostas and Bearded Iris or Iris Pallida that look like Bog Iris.

Book Cover

Plant Plants Together

Plant Plants Together

Massed planting, grouping and organised beds are just some ways of putting plants together to optimse impact.

Sometimes a single plant looks a bit weak or out of place on it’s own but a group of one variety can vastly improve the overall image of your garden. This row of Lime trees is planted close together with a fairly narrow path in between but the effect is visually strong whatever the season.

Tips to Use Plants Together

  • When planting shrubs it is often said that groups of odd numbers 3, 5, and 7 have positive effects. There is more harmony and they are easier on the eye that way.

    • …

    Read More Read More

A Top Ten of Green Flowers

A Top Ten of Green Flowers

Book Cover

‘Green Flowers: Unexpected Beauty for the Garden, Container or Vase’ by Alison Hoblyn is a book celebrating all that is best with green flowers. If you want to splash out on a second book try ‘Emeralds: 1000 Green Flowers and 500 Choice Green Foliage Plants’ by Karen Platt’. Who would have thought there were so many green flowers  to choose from.

Green flowers make a good foil for stronger colours on other plants and also generate a lot of interest in their own right. Flower arrangers love green plants and many traditional flowers like Chrysanths and Carnations have been bred for cutting but many florists flowers are died to look green so beware.

Green Anthurium

Top Ten Green Flowering Plants

  1. Hemerocallis the Day Lily variety Green Flutter gets our list off to a yellowish green start as shown on the book cover.
  2. Ribes laurifolium Mrs Amy Doncaster is a strong growing lime green flowering currant. It is evergreen and a strong performer that attracts bees. One of my all time favourites.
  3. Alchemilla mollis or Lady’s Mantle is a free flowering easy to grow (free seeding thus harder to control) small perennial with light airy grey-green flowers.
  4. Hecquetica epipactus has flowers or what look like flowers. Six green petaled “daisies” with domed yellow centres sit on the ground in tight clumps sometimes with a slight yellow colouring in part of the petal or bract. …

    Read More Read More

Lobelia for Water Gardens

Lobelia for Water Gardens

Lobelia are a lot more than the trailing edge plant associated with Alyssum.

lobelis-

Some members of the Lobelia family love water and are happy to be submerged in your pond or pool others like to be planted in moist margins. These Lobelia are the hardy perennial and half hard perennials described below rather than the blue and white annuals we grow as children.

Lobelia Senssilifolia

Flowers in glorious blue to purple and has elegant lance shaped leaves growing to 2 feet tall and making a tight clump. Plant in soil and in up to 2 inches of water and propagate by division. It should not need special winter protection.

Lobelia cardinalis and ‘Dark Crusader’

The cardinal flower has striking dark red foliage made even more spectacular by a  profusion of scarlet flowers in August. The 3 feet high plants may need staking and in winter they should be moved  to drier conditions so it is best to plant in a deep planting basket. The plants like moist soil and semi-shade when growing . They work well with Hostas for contrast in shape and colour.

Lobelia Queen Victoria …

Read More Read More

Contrasting Grass Forms and Foliage

Contrasting Grass Forms and Foliage

Lawn, meadow, prairie or specimen grass it is all one to the sheep.

Fountain Grass

Undulating shapes and sizes in an attractive outline help to create a flourishing and sophisticated design in a garden. By varying plants and grass shapes in your landscapes you can create a lively scene.
There is no end to the combinations you could select but below is one option.

Simple Contrasting Foliage

Miscanthus sinesis Graziella is a vigorous ornamental, clump forming grass with bold narrow leaves that grow to 4 feet high. It is well behaved and will not spread and has showy white flowers at the end of the season.
Variegated foliage can add a new visual dimension and the white striped leaves of Gardeners Garters Phalaris arundinacea Picta has floppy to arching leaves that can be stricking. It is a bit of a thug spreading rapidly in damp soil but you can plant it in a buried pot.
The Solenostemon family of Coleus have a wide range of colours often on the same soft leaf.
For mobile grass try Pennisetum alopecurides the Fountain Grass with seed heads that can reach 3 feet high.

Wheat grass
Artemesia stelleriana has silver-grey leaves through out the year.

In this selection I have avoided plants grown primarily for their flowers. However if you wanted to intersperse just one flower then a Hemerocallis ‘Imperial Lemon’ may suit the situation.

Tips for Planting Your Pots & Containers

Tips for Planting Your Pots & Containers

Long Toms

Selecting a Pot

  • Use as big a pot as you can find. Larger volumes of compost do not need watering as often and take longer to dry out.
  • Line a clay or terracotta pot with plastic to reduce evaporation through the sides.
  • Put plenty of crocks at the bottom of the pot to help drainage.
  • Use a loam based compost which holds water better than a peat based compost that tends to go dusty when dry and is hard to rewet.
  • Locate the pot in place before it is full and too heavy to move. You can get base boards on casters so the pot is mobile.
  • Black pots absorb heat, plastic is utilitarian and widely available, some ceramics will not be frost proof.
  • If you aim to grow tall subjects weight the bottom of the pot to reduce the risk of it blowing over.
  • Cluster pots together to make a micro climate and watering will be easier.

Container garden

Planting Up

  • Firm your plants in well and backfill with more compost.
  • Ensure all roots are covered as they would dry out quickly.
  • Water the plants and if the surface sinks add more compost.
  • Leave about 1″ below the rim for watering.
  • Deadhead flowers regularly in summer.
  • Feed with a liquid fertilizer every week after the first month. Initially the compost should contain enough nourishment.
  • Select some edge plants to soften the appearance of the pot.
  • Aim for height that relates to the size of your pot.
  • If growing a specimen like a half standard I would mulch with a coloured gravel to finish off the overall appearance.

Wheel container
Container Equipment

  • I ofter use a saucer under pots to help watering.
  • In winter pots need to be raised off the ground on feet or bricks so they do not freeze to the soil and break.
  • If pots are not frost free then give them winter protection.
  • Experiment with different types and shapes of container
  • A layer of grit or gravel on the top will prevent moss growth and help leave room for watering.
Meaning of Glauca for Gardeners

Meaning of Glauca for Gardeners

Abies procera glauca

Glauca is a word that crops up in the naming of several plants. Like many Latin derived names it is descriptive as with the Noble Fir Tree  above ‘Abies procera glauca’. The leaves are glaucous, which is from the Latin word glauca, meaning bluish-grey. (Procera mean tall in Latin)

Glauca also refers to the fact that some plants have a powdery white coating on their leaves or stems. This coating, sometimes called a bloom or farina creates the grey colouring that can lead to the Glauca name.
Glaucous-leaved trees and plants contrast gently with the shades of green around them and combine well with almost any other color making them useful in landscaping and garden design.

Pica glauca out

Glaucous Plants

Nicotiana glauca Tree Tobacco is a much branched shrub or small tree often reaching 25 feet
Picea glauca (White Spruce) is a species of spruce native to the north of North America
Festuca glauca Elijah Blue the Blue Hair Grass
Rosa Glauca rubrifolia the flowers are not remarkable, being small, single and pink but the plum-grey foliage is unique.
Yucca and Canna both have a glaucous form
Plums and grapes often have a grey white bloom on the ripe fruit.

Consider using these grey-green combinations in your garden with Rue or Rudbeckia maxima as further examples.

Blackberry

Top Rockery Plants for Growin In UK

Top Rockery Plants for Growin In UK

alpine21

Rockery plants look very good in spring as they trail over rocks and edges in the garden. The rockery mimics natural conditions for these alpine dwellers often with limestone rocks or fast draining poor soil.

Top Rockery Plants for Beginners

  • Arabis shown above is also known as snow-in-summer and has showers of white flowers. The plant is robust and useful for covering rough stoney ground. Some species need a bit more care but are useful in the rockery including Arabis rosa a pink form and arabis bryoides that forms a small mat of hairl leaved rosetts.

…

Read More Read More

Ornamental Grass Growing Tips

Ornamental Grass Growing Tips

Growing Ornamental Grass can be easy and it will create a natural effect in your own garden. Aim for a mixture of textures, shapes and colours using leaves, flowers and seed heads.
In an open setting, with a low sun shining through, many grass plants can produce stunning effects.

Growing Tips

  • Remove dry seed heads to prevent self seeding
  • Tie tops together to aid cutting back in late winter with shears or a strimmer.
  • Select perennial, clump forming varieties rather than annuals or spreading grasses that can take over a small bed. (I avoid Phalaris for that reason).

    • …

    Read More Read More

Tips for Starting Your Garden Design

Tips for Starting Your Garden Design

When looking at a garden or potential garden for the first time there are some basics to consider. I recommend you spend sometime thinking about these issues and build the consequences into your plans. Brains baffles brawn in a new garden – well begun is half done.

Himalayan garden sculpture

Location Location

  • Understand the region and area where the garden is located and think about what it may mean. An East coast Scottish location will be colder than Essex but a West coast location may benefit from the warmer gulf stream. Seaside may be windier than a riverside spot.
  • What are the surrounding environmental features such as mountains that could influence rainfall
  • What is the underlying rock structure, limestone or chalk will not favour acid loving plants
  • What is the aspect of the garden or which direction is the sun
  • Where is the prevailing wind – in the UK this is most often from the west

…

Read More Read More