Our newly planted garden in autumn
When I started Gardening Mentor back in July, I decided to have a bit of a change-around in our home garden. And when I say “a bit of a change”, I mean a big one.
The wildflower meadow remains in its central position, but the borders that surround it have been completely replanted. We inherited borders filled with garish red tulips and worn out roses.
Now they are filled with a huge diversity of wild and cultivated specimens with a bit more “class” than the previous tenants.
A garden for visitors
The reason for this re-shuffle was to help my clients choose plants for their own garden.
Most people who don’t spend a lot time with plants, struggle to name or picture specific species. This makes choosing plants for their own garden challenging. And so, the more common plants that can be easily re-called are chosen and planted. This makes them even more common and at times, slightly boring.
Think Lavender, Fuchsia, Euonymus etc.
And although there’s nothing wrong with these plants (I actually really like many selections within these genera), I need to tell you that there are so many amazing species out there!
But when there’s 200+ different types of plant growing right in front of your eyes, choosing ones that you love becomes a whole lot easier.
Newly planted but filled with potential
Over the last four months, I’ve been sourcing plants from a range of different places. Many I’ve propagated from clients gardens (with their permission of course), and others have been picked from nursery catalogues and occasionally garden centres.
I don’t think any of the specimens that I’ve planted so far could be described as rare. In fact, most are quite common.
But a lot of the plants are “uncommon in British gardens” such as this Epilobium canum. I always knew it as Zauschneria californica, but it’s now been reclassified at Epilobium (the same genus as Rosebay Willowherb).
Thankfully, this species isn’t invasive. It has stunning red/orange flowers in late summer, autumn and early winter.
At capacity? No way
There’s currently around 200 different types of plant in our garden. That’s quite a lot for a garden of this size. I’ve been able to achieve this degree of diversity by only planting one of each plant.
This isn’t how I would design a normal garden, but then again, it’s not a normal garden. It’s a showroom. A trial garden. And in this situation I favour diversity over cohesion.
The planting density is currently sitting at around 4 plants per m2 of bed space. I think I can push this up to around 7 plants per m2. So this leaves me quite a bit of room for more amazing specimens.
It’s also likely that some plants will not survive in our garden environment. That’s fine, it’s important to know which plants do well in our area and which ones do not.
And every plant that dies is an opportunity to plant something even more special that will do well in our garden.
So when will I stop adding to our “collection”? Who knows? Hopefully never.
I recently acquired three species of Ceratosigma. This includes two shrubby plants (Ceratostigma willmottianum and C. griffithii) and one herbaceous (C. plumbaginoides).
Excited for next year
Even though the planting density is creeping up with every new addition to the garden, it still looks quite bare at the moment.
That’s because the garden is so newly planted. Some plants are barely more than rooted cuttings right now.
I hope that as spring 2025 kicks in, plants will really get going. The fact that a lot of the plants went in the ground in late summer when the the soil was still warm means that strong root growth will have continued for at least a few weeks. The perfect foundation for a good summer’s growth.
But winter is here now and the plants have to cope with that first.
And while some plants “run to mush” (a technical term) at the first sign of frost like this beautiful Rodgersia pinnata.
Others such as Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Arnold Promise’ are just thinking about show us what they’re made of.
And despite it being almost December, some plants such as this Salvia nemorosa ‘Pink Inspiration’ are still throwing up the occasional flower spike.
A few more long lasting seed heads
Dead heading is traditionally carried out as soon as flowers have “gone over”. But for me, the old flowers spikes can be just as good as the flowers themselves.
I personally avoid dead heading and cutting back until late winter/early spring.
Check out this post to hear a story about a Hazel Dormouse that would have benefited from a less rigorously maintained garden.
Such an interesting post Joe! Amazing to see your ‘trials’ garden. Agree that it is great for clients to see different plants on display apart from our usual common choices. I must say I have always stayed boringly safe with what I know. Maybe next season I will branch out afresh !!
Thanks mam, you will have to come and choose some plants for yours and dad’s garden 😊