By Janemanning
Gloucestershire,
United Kingdom 
Advice on plants for a community park garden
I am looking for advice on which plants to put into a community entrance area to a local park - we need something which is good ground cover to stop brambles and nettles and looks attractive - I thought about herbs and a range of shrubs but dont know what to get that will be hardy and cover enough ground. Also needs to be quite low cost to buy as we havent got much money.
At the moment we have got garden mulch donated from a local company on top of the existing soil - we did try and remove as much of the original weeds as we could - but they are coming back through.
Any help much appreciated thanks Jane
21 Aug, 2010
Hi Jane and welcome to GoY before you plant anything you are going to have to remove all the perennial weeds, especially the brambles and nettles. Annuals you can yank out after planting but perennials will just make a complete mess of the bed. Remove the mulch, weed throughly and don't replace the mulch until you have planted. I would have suggested using a weed barrier membrane but I doubt you will be able to afford at around £10 a square metre and brambles would grow through it in any case.
Herbs, in general, need very poor dry soil to thrive whilst shrubs tend to need more humus rich soil - do you know what the soil is like? Acid/alkaline, clay, silty, sandy, loamy? This will affect what you can plant. Also which way does the ground face?
I could give you suggests for shrubs but without know the info above they would not necessarily be what you need.
21 Aug, 2010