Drought and heat tolerant plants

by | Sep 19, 2023 | Gardens | 0 comments

Drought and heat tolerant plants :

Plant them now for a carefree display next Summer!

Just back from France and couldn’t help noticing the beautiful green spaces in urban areas, but more importantly the conscious effort to choose plants that are more adapted to our changing climate and require little water once settled. No more petunias and other thirsty annuals, but lots of drought resistant perennials and grasses which we can all use in our gardens.

Good preparation of the ground is key to the long-term establishment and health of your new planting scheme.  This involves getting rid of weeds that will compete with the new perennials, turning over the soil to aerate and improve its structure, then adding a lot of good compost, and even some grit to help with drainage.

 

A colour combination that works particularly well in hot and dry borders is blue, yellow and white. For this you could use some of the following plants:

Perovskia Blue Spire

Nepeta Walkers’ Low

Verbena bonariensis

Euphorbia characias

Phlomis russeliana

Gaura lindheimeri

Lavandula or Santolina

And lots of tall or smaller grasses such as Calamagrostis and Stipa…

Limit your palette of plants, plant in groups of 3 or 5, and repeat throughout the border.

If you do this between September and November, your new planting scheme should settle over the Winter and give you a beautiful, drought resistant display by next Summer.

Happy Gardening!

Anne Fraser and Caroline Streets

07729 835988 & 07930 876348

www.plantinggems.co.uk

[email protected]

 

Hard or Soft Landscaping?

by | Apr 20, 2023 | Gardens | 0 comments

Hard or Soft Landscaping?

Why you could save yourself a lot of money by using plants instead of bricks…

Thinking of redesigning your garden and not sure what you need? Let’s start with some explanations.

Hard landscaping includes all the elements that need to be constructed, such as patios, fences, walls, ponds, sheds and summer houses…

Soft Landscaping is all about the natural, horticultural elements of your garden: hedges, trees and shrubs, flower beds and climbers.

Whilst there is no doubt that sometimes you need to address boundaries and areas of the garden with some construction, our experience is that in a lot of cases you can create a similar effect with greenery.

The soft elements of the landscape are indeed an easy way to change the entire look of the garden without excessive costs.

In our typical London gardens, often small and narrow, we are often asked to split the open space into different zones to create interest, and the temptation is to use patios, fences or pergolas to do so.

However, using plants that can provide boundaries, screens or height is often a better, greener and much cheaper alternative. The variety of size, shape and texture that plants offer also enables a lot of creativity and a varied, changing landscape throughout the year.

Plants can be used to divide areas, create movement and shape, and even to direct traffic through the garden. Eyesores such as compost bins or storage areas can be hidden behind soft hedges or other evergreens. A new bench on the lawn can be surrounded by a small border to provide privacy and a new dining area can be defined by a low circle of greenery.

In today’s world, when we all need to be more sustainable, plants are also a crucial way to help insects and wildlife in general, so as well as saving money, you are helping the environment.

So, when planning your garden project, remember to hire a company that offers this horticultural knowledge, as the choice of plants will be decisive in giving your garden its character and personality.

After all, would you ask your plumber to advise on the new curtains or wallpaper for the bathroom he is building for you?

Anne Fraser and Caroline Streets

07729 835988 & 07930 876348

www.plantinggems.co.uk

[email protected]

Planting gems gardeners

by | Mar 16, 2023 | Homes & Gardens | 0 comments

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

www.plantinggems.co.uk

[email protected]

A low maintenance garden – Myth or Reality?

by | Dec 14, 2022 | Gardens | 0 comments

A low maintenance garden – Myth or Reality?

One of the most frequent requests from our clients is for a low maintenance planting scheme. Though there is no garden that doesn’t require a little bit of care and pruning from time to time, there are clear steps that you can take to make yours long-lasting and enjoyable without too much hard work.

1 – Choose hardy, evergreen shrubs with contrasting texture and foliage; these will form the backbone of your garden and once established, will require little care.

 

Make sure that you check their expected mature height and spread, otherwise you may have to prune regularly to fit the space. And beware of climbing plants that need regular tidying or cutting back, such as Wisteria for example.

Keep your scheme simple, repeat plants throughout the garden to create shapes and rhythm that will give the garden the “designed” look. We like to use dome-shaped evergreen shrubs such as Hebes, Lavenders and Skimmias and contrast them with more upright, low maintenance specimen plants such as Euonymus or Pittosporums.

2 – Right plant, right place; as climate change presents us with the challenge of gardening with less water, choosing plants that suit the growing conditions becomes even more important.

Perennials are usually the most time-consuming culprits in borders, requiring feeding, watering, staking, dividing etc… There are however some unfussy perennials that we use regularly in our schemes as we know that they cope with a lot of neglect once established; Sedums that look good from Spring to Winter, Nepetas that cope well with drought and provide long lasting colour, Geraniums that flower for months, Salvias, Geums and ornamental Grasses to name a few…

3 – Feed and protect your plants with a mulch; we all know that weeding is the biggest chore in gardens, so to reduce maintenance requirements, add a thick layer of mulch to all your borders. Make sure you’ve weeded first, then spread a decent depth of fresh compost (10cm at least); this will cover all bare soil and prevent weed seeds from germinating.

If done regularly in Spring and/or Winter, it will also feed your plants and retain moisture, meaning healthier plants and less watering.

4 – Plant at the right time of the year; you can plant at any time of the year, avoiding maybe the driest and hottest months of the summer, but there is a clear advantage in planting in Autumn to guarantee the long-term resilience of your planting scheme. This is particularly true for shrubs or trees that will spend the cooler months concentrating on developing strong roots rather than leaves and flowers, making them tougher from the start.

Happy Gardening,

Anne and Caroline – Planting Gems

www.plantinggems.co.uk

07729 835988 & 07930 876348

[email protected]

Seasonal thoughts from Planting Gems

by | Sep 15, 2022 | Gardens | 0 comments

How has your garden coped this Summer?

Many of our gardens have struggled over the last few hot, dry months and our plants are showing signs of stress. We have had so little rain and unusually high temperatures, and some of our borders are looking parched, shrivelled and sad. You are not alone!

 

We avoid planting in July and August: the ground is dry and hard to dig; watering would need to be carried out almost daily and plants struggle to establish their roots and bloom as they focus all their energies on coping with the elements. Stressed plants are more prone to pests and diseases. However here are some tips that can make a difference to how well your garden survives a hot, dry Summer.

Small pots and containers heat up and dry out more quickly so rationalise your containers, and though it’s good to arrange them in groups, use the biggest sizes that can be accommodated by the space and your budget. When you water, stand over each plant for at least 10 seconds letting the water drain down through the soil to the roots. A light sprinkle encourages the roots to come to the surface and evaporates quickly from the surface and never penetrates down to where it’s needed.

Compacted soil means any water will run off before being absorbed into the soil. So cultivate your borders with a hoe or fork, to lightly break up the surface crust. Then, apply a good quality, organic mulch to your borders and pots – this will perform several functions: feeding the soil; encouraging worms to breaking up the structure of the soil; shading the soil from direct sunlight and thereby cooling it; reducing water loss by evaporation and retaining any moisture; and finally suppressing weeds.

As you notice some leaves/stems getting munched or succumbing to disease, do remove them. Weakened plant material attracts pests and bugs, and can make the problem worse. Think about the orientation of your garden and where the sun falls during the day, and consider whether the plants in the sunniest spot are suitable for those dry, hot conditions. Perhaps you need to think about introducing some shade, for example by planting a small tree once the weather cools down.

And Autumn is on the horizon – the best time in the gardening calender to replant a garden. The soil cools down and becomes moister and easier to work. The prevailing conditions place less stress on plants, enabling them to focus on establishing their roots, and preparing themselves for winter and a good display next year.

So – look forward to that!

Happy Gardening!

Anne Fraser and Caroline Streets

Planting Gems

www.plantinggems.co.uk

[email protected]

07729 835988 & 07930 876348