A Bit On The Side - 7

30 comments

As in the garden makeover TV program ‘Ground Force’, I will now reveal what I have been doing with my new piece of garden. Did you spot a common theme with the plants in part six of these blogs? Read on.

To recap, I bought a piece of my neighbour’s garden earlier this year that had become rather overgrown.

As there was nothing really worth saving, the whole plot was cleared

the new area fenced off

and paving laid

I have double-dug the entire area and added organic matter and general fertiliser so everything should get off to a good start. Earlier this week, the last major plants were delivered and I have now been able to complete the planting. This is what it looks like now.

Looking at the planting in more detail, this is the area on your right as you enter. At the back is a row of chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Pelt’s Blue’ which will make a hedge about six to eight feet tall in ten year’s time (thanks to Bluespruce for advice on choosing these). The two tall plants are cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’ (hanging on to two red leaves) and catalpa bignonioides ‘Aurea’. Between them is hydrangea macrophylla ‘Tricolor’ and to the right of the cercis are hypericum androsaenum ‘Albury Puple’ (which I brought back from Normandy in June) and metrosideros ‘Gold Nugget’. In the front (right to left) are the grass panicum virgatum ‘Rehbraun’ which I bought on my recent trip to Holland (it gets to four feet tall), berberis thunbergii ‘Admiration’, still showing some of its red foliage, and podocarpus ‘Young Rusty’ with artemisia ludovicina ‘Valerie Finnis’ just showing behind it.

The far right corner is occupied by just one shrub, cornus alternifolia ‘Argentea’. To its left (out of shot), are berberis thunbergii ‘Rose Glow’ with schizophragma hydrangeoides ‘Moonlight’ against the fence (you can see these in the middle of the general view picture).

To the left of the paving circle at the far end, are three plants of choisya ternata ‘Sundance’ with sambucus nigra ‘Black Lace’ behind them and libertia ‘Taupo Blaze’ in front. To the left of the picture is rhododendron ‘Everred’ with rosa glauca behind.

Finally, the section on your left as you enter looks like this. Here the main plant is acer palmatum ‘Bloodgood’ with dark purple leaves. Behind it is acanthopanax sieboldiana ‘Variegata’ (this can take poor, dry soil in shade) and to the left zenobia pulverulenta, phormium ‘Dazzler’ and hebe ‘Lady Ann’. In front of the acer is pseudowintera colorata, then left to right are athyrium ‘Ghost’ (a fern with grey fronds), euphorbia amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’ and fuchsia ‘Genii’ with geranium macrorhizum ‘Variegatum’ in front. Where the paving joins the circle, there are some cyclamen hederifolium.

The planting looks a bit sparse at present as much of it is shrubby and I have allowed space for them to fill out. I will also add some herbaceous plants in spring as they become available at the Garden Centres but I am happy with the effect the plants create for now.

And the ‘theme’ of the area? All the plants have coloured or variegated foliage – this is my new foliage garden.

18 Oct, 2009
11 likes

Comments

Bluespruce

Very nice Andrew, and good to see a foliage theme for a change.Definitely some very good choices of plants, Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy', one of my favorites. I will also be very interested to know if your Libertia 'Taupo Blaze' retains that lovely darkish wine red colour all year or at some stage changes back to the more familiar orange-yellow shades.

18 Oct, 2009

Drc726

Lovely Andrew I love the all year round interest that shrubs can give. If I had to choose only 1 type of planting it would be shrubs.

18 Oct, 2009

Sanbaz

well andrew what a great job you have done in sucha short time to, it looks really lovely, are you going to have a statue or anything in the circle, i would but them its your garden lol
looks great :o))

18 Oct, 2009

Amblealice

Fab planting scheme Andrew...look forward to seeing it next year...

18 Oct, 2009

Andrewr

Sanbaz - I'm getting some pots planted up. A while back, I posted a photo of one with a blue grass surrounded by blue acaena. I'm in the process of planting up three more - a 'brown' one, a 'white' one and a 'yellow' one - they all have a grass in the centre and ground cover round it. These will stand on the paving circle. On the gravel in the centre, I am planning to have the only green-leaved plant in this section - a cycad in a large pot

18 Oct, 2009

Sanbaz

yes i remember andrew, grasses will look great, they give a striking affect, look forward to the finished picture, will look up cycad not sure on that one. just looked at a pic of cycad and its very tropical looking should look really good

18 Oct, 2009

Spritzhenry

Looking great, Andrew! I bet you had fun planning it, and sourcing all the shrubs/plants! :-))

18 Oct, 2009

Andrewr

Yes I did spritz. Trying to get all the contrasting foliage colours was quite a challenge. A lot of 'yellow' leaves go green in shade and I didn't want to use too much variegated foliage. Do you know Junker's Nursery near Taunton? They supplied the cornus but the acer came from a supplier on the edge of Bracknell

18 Oct, 2009

Madperth

It looks so impressive! Makes me want to hop on the bus to Glendoik!

18 Oct, 2009

Lincslass

Well done Andrew,that is going to look fabulous when they fill out.I love the idea of the one green plant its going to draw ones gaze and will be a smashing focal point......

19 Oct, 2009

Bamboo

Looking forward to seeing it as they grow - hope you'll be posting about this Bit on the Side every 3 months or so. As always with you, Andrew, a good number of unusual plants in there. I find I need a pen and a bit of paper to make notes whenever I look at your garden pics...;-)

19 Oct, 2009

Spritzhenry

I do indeed know Junker's. We went there to look at the possible replacements for my dead Eleagnus! She advised a Ligustrum lucidum 'Tricolour' - which looks great and is doing really well! Bought three Betula jacquemontii as well, and a Sarcocca saligna. She has the largest collection of Betula I've ever seen!

19 Oct, 2009

Ian_digs_v2

I've followed your 'bit on the side' from the begining Andrew and it has been very interesting and quite educational to see how someone else goes about creating a garden from scratch. I have enjoyed it but pleased I wasn't responsible for doing the double digging! :~))

19 Oct, 2009

Donnah

Andrew you have done a brill job looks good

19 Oct, 2009

Andrewr

Ian - the double digging was the bit I was least looking forward to but most of it went quite well as the soil was in good heart and just needed a good feed. The only difficult bit was the corner behind where I have planted the acer as the roots of the neighbour's big conifer were near the surface. Hopefully the shrub I have planted there (acanthopanax) will cope with it but I will keep a keen eye on it

19 Oct, 2009

Spritzhenry

I still want a Pseudowintera colorata...............................

19 Oct, 2009

Ian_digs_v2

I'm pleased to hear that it went ok and don't those conifer roots get everywhere? I inherited a whole line of them and they were right through that side of the garden when I first dug it over.

19 Oct, 2009

Orgratis

Had a lot of fun googling your list to identify the exact varieties which are always so choice! All that burgundy & gold should be outstanding, with dollops of variegation! Metrosidero "Gold Nugget" looks fabulous, but apparently is not offered yet in the US: was it introduced at Chelsea? Zenobia is also new to me with adorable lily of the valley cups (& a SE US native, blush) as well as Psudowintera colorata (a medicinal to boot): interesting leaves. You know to leave plenty of growing space for your plan. Didn't know you could buy part of your neighbors' yard, & have this vision of you buying up strips & easements & parcels to zigzag a garden quilt all over & through your neighborhood! Andrew's labyrinth!

20 Oct, 2009

Spritzhenry

LOL. What fun he'd have - and all the visitors when the garden's open!

20 Oct, 2009

Andrewr

Orgratis - I came across the metrosideros at my local 'cheap and cheerful' Garden Centre. It is only borderline hardy here so if we get another winter like the last one, I will probably lose it but I have given it a very sheltered position and well-drained soil and will keep my fingers crossed.
Zenobias are quite readily available in the UK, I think this may be a named variety as the foliage is very glaucous
Pseudowintera is a specialist plant - it takes a lot of shade but doesn't like to dry out

As for more land - perhaps I'd better start looking over garden fences? :-)

20 Oct, 2009

Spritzhenry

Dare you - well, on second thoughts, we don't want you arrested, so maybe not!!

20 Oct, 2009

Louise1

I loved this blog :-)

Your choices are great and i loved reading about what went where !

I too have some Metrosiderous.
One either side of my front garden path, they were planted last summer and sailed through this past winter with no trouble at all.

For this region of the country we had a 'cold, hard' winter', i know we sound 'a bit soft' to you folks living a bit further north but .... in this region cold weather's a big thing !!!
Anyway, my point is that i doubt you'll have a problem with it if your temperatures are similar to mine !
Fingers crossed :-)

20 Oct, 2009

Andrewr

Thanks Louise. How cold did your garden get last winter?
We usually go to -5C here but recorded -8C last winter

20 Oct, 2009

Louise1

Andrew, we had overnight temps down as low as -3 which is unheard of here !
Those were for a period of about 2 weeks.
As a normal rule we don't drop below zero.

I'm wondering if your area is infact colder than here.
For you to say 'usually' -5 makes me think you're region actually 'is' colder than ours :-(

-8 makes me want to say "move house" ;-)

21 Oct, 2009

Spritzhenry

Strangely, just a few miles down the coast from Louise, it was colder here by a couple of degrees.

21 Oct, 2009

Louise1

Queer isn't it :-/

21 Oct, 2009

Andrewr

You can get all sorts of micro-climates, even within a garden. The new section should be quite protected and I have planted the metrosideros against a fence facing west.

It was interesting to see what coped with the slightly lower temperatures last winter and what didn't. The banksia sailed through without any problems but I lost two clematis. On a south-facing trellis, a young vitex and feijoa coped but an established abutilon megapotanicum between them nearly pegged it.

21 Oct, 2009

Louise1

Yes, it's fascinating isn't it !

21 Oct, 2009