Working on the Woodland

I was recently offered the chance to preview eminent plantsman Keith Wiley's new book, Designing and Planting a Woodland Garden: Plants and Combinations that Thrive in the Shade.

If you are interested in creating a woodland garden, or even a woodland patch within your garden, then this book will become an invaluable source of information. The visual appeal is always important to me in a gardening book, and this one has it in spades (excuse the pun!), with plenty of inspiring photographs depicting wonderful and practical woodland planting combinations.  Keith Wiley offers his vast knowledge of woodland planting throughout, and an informative and extensive directory helps you choose the right plant for the right place. It really fired up my imagination to get out and make a few changes in my own little woodland border.

Now, my area couldn't be classed as strictly woodland, I'm not sure you'd find many bamboos on your Sunday stroll through the woods, although Keith does give them a mention in the book. The majority of the plants here do fit in with a woodland theme though. Of course there are ferns. Many ferns!

In fact, there are ten in this small area, and I was delighted during my recent garden revamp to discover three baby Cristate Male Ferns just behind the parent plant. I've potted these up and am looking forward to filling the space out with them (what little is left) when they're a bit bigger. It is definitely one of my favourite ferns thanks to it's tall, statuesque dark green fronds.

After reading Keith's book, I decided to move all of the Hellebores scattered around the garden to this area. I've always thought they looked rather out of place in the other borders but never knew what to do with them. They look so much more natural here, especially the tall Xsternii which was a bit of an eyesore elsewhere.

I've always been stumped by this shady little patch right of the bamboo, against the fence where it meets the patio. Nothing much grew here, and I've tried many plants over the years. I could have added another fern, but wanted something with a spark of colour that would cover the fence. Thanks to the book, I think I have now found the low maintenance solution...a Pieris!

This one was growing in my front garden, or rather outgrowing the raised bed it was in. I'm sure it will happily romp away here.

I let plants like Campanula and Hardy Geraniums have free reign in this border. They looked lovely in the summer.

Dianthus are slowly starting to spread out and clothe the border edges.

And hopefully the Brunnera will do the same. It seems that just as a new plant pops up, it gets destroyed by slugs and snails. I've already picked half a dozen nibbled leaves off the three that have survived from last year.

Not a woodland plant, but one that really adds some colour is Houttuynia 'Flame'.  It's planted in a pot in the ground here as it is incredibly invasive, I do keep a close eye on it too. It prefers damp soil, so being able to control the moisture in a pot is ideal.

Colour is what has been missing from this border during late summer, other than green, so I've moved all of my Japanese Anemones here and I have more growing on to go out next year. They should mix nicely with the earlier flowering plants that are already here.

And I love my Acer! This is Sango-Kaku. It has yellow/orange leaves in Spring that turn green in summer , change to pink and then yellow in the Autumn. So pretty! This is in a pot in the ground as it can have quite a large spread and I don't want it taking over.  It seems to be doing really well and I'm highly impatient for it to get a bit taller.

Natural ponds can appear in woodlands and my ones here in the border have matured nicely.  The frogs really appreciate having all the undergrowth to hide in and sitting on the bench and looking back on the woodland patch is relaxing.

I'll be adding some spring bulbs here and then I think it will be mostly complete. One border down, three more and a front garden to go!

I hope you enjoyed my little woodland patch tour. Keith Wiley's book will be published by Timber Press early 2015 and will be available from AMAZON. One to add to your Wishlist!

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Working on the Wildlife Ponds

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The July Garden

It's been a while since I've shown some overviews of the garden, so time to remedy that I think, and to make myself a promise that I'll post these every month. It's always great to look back and see the garden through the year. So, here is late July.

After all my revamping, some areas are looking a lot better, but some are looking a little bare. I removed a massive amount of plants, straggly Lavenders (why do I bother with them!), too many large Sedums (I get carried away with cuttings), hundreds of Crocosmia that were threatening to take over the garden (they are EVERYWHERE!) and various other plants that I'd either fallen out of love with or weren't looking that great. Truthfully, it's nice to have some new space to play around with, despite all the back breaking work and being so exhausted I fell asleep at 6.00pm one day!

The Bamboo got a really good thinning out as the stems were gradually creeping forwards and sideways. It has such lovely form and I'm so glad I planted one in the first few years of starting this garden, as it's really had a chance to mature and just loves it's shady space.

You can actually see the stepping stone path now. It was completely overrun with plants before my latest work, my legs kept getting whipped by stems as I walked past!

 

The Sedum in the shed border survived my hacking job, as did two at the back of the garden, but if I can find suitable replacements for them they might go as well. Despite giving them the Chelsea chop back in May, they are still really tall and flopping all over the place. I do like them once they burst into colour, but am not sure the room they take up and their short time of looking pretty are worthy plants for my small garden. We'll see!

My idea of growing enough plants at the back here to completely smother the wall is starting to come together and... 'I love it when a plan comes together' ;-) . I'll soon be able to seamlessly borrow from the plants and trees in the nature reserve behind the wall to make the garden look bigger.

One thing I don't wish to borrow from is my neighbour to the lefts garden, or for garden see the definition of jungle/junk yard! I'm having to stop couch grass from coming under the fences, bindweed and nettles over the fences and this giant Elderflower from overshadowing the patio! I've trimmed it back three times already this year, but it's a really fast grower. You can see how much taller than the fence it is, a real monster, so it's out with the platform ladders this weekend for a proper cut back right into the branches that are overhanging. What a shame not everyone respects the precious piece of land they are given.

I'll leave you with some other overviews of the garden, but not too much of the top right corner, as I'm saving that for my next post.

The next areas on my hitlist for a bit of a spruce up are the island bed and far left border behind the shed as they seem to have merged into one! Think I need a rest first though.

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Evolution

If there's one thing that draws me into a gardening blog or website, it's photos that show how a garden has changed and evolved over time. I love to see large areas of gardens, the heights and layers people achieve with planting and the combinations of plants, and then how it all blends into the garden as a whole. Without the aid of a helicopter, photographing mine in one go is impossible, not that it's big of course, but there are obstacles in the way. So I content myself with snapshots of areas, trying to capture the scene from different angles so I can see the changes throughout the seasons and throughout the years. Sometimes, the difference in just a fortnight is startling, and looking back over the years, it's amazing just how much has changed in my garden, and how much back breaking, hard work has gone into it.

There is so much lush green growth at the moment. The spring bulbs have mostly gone now, and the perennials are bursting forth.

You can see Clematis Pixie along the back wall here, climbing up the Pyracantha. It's an evergreen, has the most beautiful flowers and amazing scent. It's a real star in the garden at the moment. It's grown quite quickly in the couple of years since I bought it, and my hope is it will spread out all along this half of the wall.

My borrowed view of Hawthorn from the nature reserve is in full bloom. Soon, my garden will look like a churchyard after a wedding, with hawthorn confetti. 

I'm fine with this though, as it looks incredible and is currently housing a magpie nest. I've been watching the pair fly back and forth over the last few weeks with twigs, patiently building their new house, and hopefully, the eggs may now have been laid.

My bamboo sits in my shady area, along with masses of ferns, hardy geraniums and other perennials that don't appear to mind being kept in the dark for a lot of the day.

It's turned into quite the monster, and every year it just gets bigger and bigger! I adore watching it sway in the wind, it's quite mesmerising. I'm not so fond of the mess the leaves make when they drop though. There's a little work still to do in this area, as builders trampled on and destroyed some plants last year. 

My coldframe, which was on my patio until two years ago, sits against the shed now. Always bursting with pots of this and that, so many in fact, that they end up spilling over onto the garden. My Lilac next to it is in bud now. I'll be growing a climber up it this year, as the trunk is now quite bare. Any recommendations for this shady little corner? Preferably something evergreen that doesn't need pruning and will cover the shed wall too. 

I can hardly believe myself that the whole of the back wall here was covered in Leylandii a few years ago, until I decided enough was enough and had them removed. It made such a difference, as they came right up to the first lamp you can see here on the fence. I had to dig out hundreds of bindweed roots, improve the soil with compost and manure and resist from planting anything for 6 months. Torture I tell you! But it's now starting to pack out nicely. More work to fill in the gaps will commence soon.

Yikes! Were they really that big and ugly!! Good riddance to them!

The space here, in front of the shed is also new, having been planted up just last year. It's coming along rather nicely.

Last year, it looked like this. We had a garage that was falling down taken away. More space to play with :-)

I've put a lot of plants in that mirror those on the right side for a bit of uniformity, but I can never resist going a bit mad with plants that are new to me. Watch this space!

I've tried many things here, behind the shed on the left of the garden, that runs along the fence. It's been a vegetable patch, a jungle of plants and a twee little planting space. None have looked right, so my new plan, that began to evolve last year, was to create a triangular bed to the right (with the obelisk in), add a path immediately to the left of it, then pack this border out with my favourite perennials. 

I made a start last week by adding some young plants, the path will be added later in the year and I'll no doubt be tweaking the area throughout the year.

I hope you've enjoyed the little tour of my garden at the start of May. I'll be adding 'overview' photos of my garden regularly, so that even subtle changes will be remembered. You can compare how it looked on the 11th April by visiting my post HERE. 

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