Time to plan our garden upgrades

Did you all take last week’s blog message to heart? The one that said make some notes about what you’ll do differently next year?  We 3Growbags have all resolved on at least three changes we’ll make – maybe they’ll spur you into action on your own patch!

Good old George Bernard Shaw said: ‘Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything’. Don’t know about that but here are some of my Alteration and Improvement plans:

1. I do love my climbers!  It seems madness not to exploit the vertical space in a garden and use the chance to have flowers at eye level. The long pergola in my garden is laden with clematis, honeysuckles, climbing roses and vines, as you can see from this week’s feature pic. 

Our Dad made it for his garden about 35 years ago, and the ironwork over the top is still largely in good nick but they are starting to tip drunkenly over the grass path below, because their wooden supports are gently rotting away in the rain.  

Winter is a good time to do a job like this, because the climbers will be dormant, and can be released from the posts and laid down while the replacement posts are put in. It’s not going to be easy, but the change in appearance of one of the main garden features, could be huge (and hopefully, bring a satisfying sense of smugness).

2. Soil is (almost) EVERYTHING in horticulture.  If we neglect this aspect, then we can never hope to achieve the heights of garden excellence we aspire to.  I am guilty of having corners that haven’t been properly improved or mulched for years, I’m ashamed to say. BUT  I have just received a great big pile of rotted horse manure, and I am sooooo excited about it!  I’m hoping my garden plants are also quivering with the anticipation of getting heaps of rotting poo piled around their roots this winter.

3. Did I ever mention that I was lucky enough to go to one of the most beautiful gardens in the world this May? Ninfa Gardens not far from Rome was created in a ruined medieval hamlet, and the combination of the ancient stone, tumbling climbers and the shining river was almost overwhelming in its loveliness.

It made me think more deeply about how a great garden is more than just plants.  No, they won’t be gnomes, but the garden is going to be home to more ‘ornamentation’ by next spring…….

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1. I’ll be replacing some old favourites with younger versions of themselves; Katie Price knows the power of timely surgical intervention to present a younger-looking version of herself, and some of my garden stalwarts definitely need a bit of ‘work’. This will be in the form of cuttings from their soft young growth to incubate over the winter and then surreptitiously boot out the old timer in the spring and replace it with a younger clone of itself.

Plants that are receiving the initial attention in the form of some subtle amputations of their lower limbs now are some of my desert island favourites …

Salvia discolor 

Abutilons ‘Marian’ and ‘Estelle’s Little Bird’

Sphaeralcea ‘Sourup’ 

Gin and Tonic plant 

Alogyne ‘Santa Cruz’

2.Double the size of my spring border – if something in your garden works – do more of it! 

Spring borders can occupy spaces that are tricky to get other plants to be happy – dry summer shade. But there is a group of enchanting vernal species that are adapted to these conditions that can really lift your spirits in late winter and early spring – epimediums, lamiums, honesty, erythroniums, cultivars of Geranium phaeum and Cyclamen coum.

This type of border is so easy to maintain too, as once the canopy of trees close over and the plants enter their summer dormancy in the dry shady soil, it is quite an inhospitable place for weeds to take hold – so more lawn is coming up and more spring border is going in 👍.

3. My third change is a suite of measures including planting out every plant I have ready this autumn, applying mulch to all my beds in the spring, only sowing the number of seeds I can cope with, limiting new garden projects to a manageable level and not indulging in impulse plant purchases. Ooh did I just hear the wingbeats of a pig flying past or was it my two sisters sniggering in the background at my inability to match horticultural ambitions with the time and energy available to complete them …

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Wow, more ornamentation? larger spring borders? These are the equivalent of simply adjusting one’s décolletage, while here in the Far North I’m wrestling with the horticultural equivalent of getting food on the table.

1. I know they’ve had a wet summer – but they havent had the ferocious winds we’ve experienced – a combination that’s proved a disaster for anything less sturdy than a fridge. Basically I need to double-down on my plant support next year. Bamboo sticks aren’t up to penetrating the aggregate that sits below my front border and the knacky trick with the metal rods (see link at the end) just doesn’t meet the needs of a 8-foot tall sunflower. I intend to get the local blacksmith on board for this one. I’ll report back.

2. My second rethink involves the auld adversary – Mr Slug. This year my toddler dahlias, sweet peas and sunflowers were literally gobbled up overnight as soon as I planted them out and don’t even talk about my veggy plug plants – it was a case of ‘now you see them, now you don’t’. Next year I’m keeping them under lock and key in my glasshouse until they’re basically ready for university. If you’ll pardon the French, I can confirm this is an accurate diagram of a slug..

3.Finally – and you may be able to help with this – I need to replace the grassy gaps in between the shrubs on my near vertical slopes with plants. Currently it’s like trying to strim Everest. Do you think I could just stuff all the gaps with enthusiastic perennials? Im really trying to get the same effect as 2 Durnamuck (look them up on Facebook – ab fab!) but will my project just look floppy, weedy and scrappy? It’s not just the physical gaps I need to consider here – there’s a certain skills gap to be addressed.

Have any of these ideas rung a bell with you? We’d love to hear about changes you are resolving to make in your garden for next year.

• Here is the video about making plant supports. I asked the merchants to give me lengths that were 2.5m x 1cm for this task – works brilliantly.
• And here is a link to this weeks video in which Laura is making more upgrades to her garden in the form of autumn flowering bulbs

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Can you think of a shrub that’s looking sprightly while so many others are looking jaded? Louise’s Great Plant this Month does, and it’s even got attractive scented flowers, intriguing foliage and attracts lots of pollinators!

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