NEW YEAR, NEW GARDEN?
Budgeted Re-Design still a good choice in challenging financial times
Gardens need regular review and refreshing. With the cost of living crisis dominating our day-to-day budgeting, we have to balance our priorities and often make difficult choices. However, it is important to keep your garden ticking over, looking good and well cared for. Not only do gardens enhance our well-being and enjoyment of our homes, but they improve the appearance of our properties and inflate its value.
If you feel that you do not have the time, knowledge or ability to take this on yourself, be reassured that employing a professional can actually save you money and ensure you achieve your aims.
Beth Chatto’s mantra ‘Right Plant, Right Place’ has become a fundamental principle of horticulture, and assessing your plot (its soil and orientation) is crucial to understanding what plants will thrive and endure for years. It is easy to be seduced by a plant at its peak in a Garden Centre, and then to rue the day of its purchase when it fails and looks poor a few months later.
Devising a scheme of plants suitable for your garden’s prevailing conditions, and agreeing a plant budget in advance, will help avoid these costly mistakes. Not over-crowding borders to allow space to grow, is also an important, cost saving, consideration, as is enriching the soil with good quality organic matter to give the plants a good start and the right growing medium.
Choosing plants that provide a long period of interest means that especially in a small space, the right, well-chosen plants can look attractive for most, if not all, the year.
Recognising the amount of maintenance needed is also an important assessment. Evergreen shrubs tend to require less maintenance than perennials, and climbers need regular tying in to look good. Introducing height, maybe with a tree or two, together with some taller shrubs, creates tiered planting, and gives a garden an immediate mature and attractive appearance. With climate change also affecting what thrives in our garden, plants need to be tough and adaptable, and may require special consideration and care.
Making wise choices about garden layouts, widths of borders, choice of plants, and how to look after them, is crucial to creating and maintaining your garden in the best way possible, with multiple seasons of interest, without wasting money. The Spring is a very good time to start this process!
Happy gardening!
Anne Fraser and Caroline Streets
07729 835988 & 07930 876348
