It’s just over a year since I started planting up our new garden from scratch so I thought I’d write a series of blogs on how successful it’s been; partly as an aide memoir for my rapidly aging brain.
So, which plants performed well and which didn’t? What have been the star plants and what disappointed? What problems have I had to overcome? And what editing am I going to do? (Aside… actually, I have already started editing. If you don’t like a plant or it’s getting on your nerves for one reason or another, rip it out and replace it! Call me callous if you like but I find my level of sentimentality towards a plant generally depends on how much I paid for it!) Before I go any further and whilst I’m in controversial territory…. Health Warning: organic gardeners (by which I mean people who garden organically of course) may be offended by parts of this post!
First… here’s a reminder of how the garden looked before any plants went in, then how it looked when most of the shrubs/evergreens had been planted. Regular readers may remember the horror of the box balls which were replaced with Taxus. I did lose one Taxus ball, I think because it never got established and was not helped by the ants’ nest under it! But my supplier replaced it for free, hooray!
And below is what it looked like by 3 May 2012 when most of the perennials had gone in.
I wanted the perennial plants along the path to be mainly evergreen so after a lot of umming, ahhing and head scratching, eventually I settled on the green Heuchera ‘White Spires’ (which as its name suggests has white flowers) sourced from local specialist growers ‘Plantagogo’ ), the grass Carex ‘Everest’ and the white flowering Geranium maculatum f. albiflorum; sourced from the lovely Sue Beesley’s fab Bluebell Cottage Gardens Nursery along with a lot of my other perennials. I am so grateful to Sue for all her patience and advice!
I’ve been very pleased with the combination of these three plants. When the Heuchera and geranium are in flower they provide a wonderfully airy and frothy effect along the path which is delightful! Now I know Heuchera are not everyone’s tasse de thé but they fulfil all and more of my criteria for selecting plants; a) they are evergreen so provide year round interest (oh for more evergreen perennials!) b) they’re easy to please and are low maintenance, c) there are many different colours and varieties for sun, shade or both, d) slugs don’t eat them and they’re mainly pest and disease-free – apart from vine weevils and what follows!
The Heuchera ‘White Spires’ flowered prolifically but before the plants had chance to bulk up, which meant some flower spikes keeled over. And the geranium didn’t flower very much so here’s hoping they will next spring! Overall I love the combination so it will be staying!
Having invested heavily in Heuchera the last thing I wanted was to lose them to vine weevil, so I decided on a ‘be prepared’ approach and ordered the appropriate nematodes online. Then disaster struck! In mid-September nearly all of my Heuchera succumbed to Heuchera rust. I defoliated them and also sprayed with Bayer Garden Systhane Fungus Fighter which seems to have done the trick. I did lose one plant and will replace it next spring.
But I am not deterred as the Heuchera have been real stars! The dark purple varieties I chose (‘Obsidian’ and ‘Dark Secret’) have been planted to create rhythm in the garden and they contrast beautifully with white flowering plants and harmonise with purple flowers and purple leafed shrubs. The star of the two is definitely ‘Dark Secret’; again sourced from Plantagogo, and these did NOT get rust!
Both dark varieties have flowered their socks off since spring and are still flowering in November! But I prefer the crinkled leaves of ‘Dark Secret’ and its flowers, which are more substantial and a better white than those of ‘Obsidian’, and are borne on sturdy stems that are a lovely dark purple. Sometimes the flower stems grow to 3 feet or more and the bees absolutely love the flowers!
Oh dear, this post seems to have become rather Heuchera-centric and a depressing tale of woe! Though it is true that serious gardening is not for the fainthearted or anyone traumatised by creepy crawlers and wriggly things. In case you fall into this category, I’ll put the rest of the ‘icky stuff’ at the end so you don’t have to read it.
In spite of the above, on the whole the garden is a great success and we got so much pleasure from it this year (and Beloved seemed quite impressed!) So I’ll leave you with a few pictures. Ta ta for now!
Pests & Diseases (a.k.a. the ‘icky stuff)
Ants: Love my garden! They’re supposed to be more of a nuisance than an outright plant pest, but they do seem to like nesting in plant roots. As it’s more or less impossible to rid them from the garden I treated each nest I found with ant powder which in the end seemed fairly effective.
Aphids: Woolly variety on beech hedge (but now the hedge is established I left it to fend for itself, which it did). Greenfly on climbing roses (sprayed a little but not too much of a problem) but the devils did pretty much destroy my sweet peas, which was sad when I’d taken the trouble to grow them from seed! Blackfly on some shrubs (sprayed a bit, pruned a bit where infestations caused deformity of leaves) and huge infestations on Leucanthemums. So partly because of that and partly because I decided I really disliked the ‘mums’, I ripped them out and binned them (see paragraph 2!)
Astrantia Leaf Spot: Affected some of my Astrantia in very late summer. I sought advice from twitter gardening friends and, as advised by the lovely @VergetteGardens, cut the plants back (carefully disposing of diseased material) and mulched around them to prevent water splash back in wet weather. Sadly I don’t think this will be the end of the story.
Lily Beetle: A few on my Asiatic lilies, easily dealt with through vigilance and squishing (sorry!) I don’t have any fratillaries and fortunately they don’t attack Hemmerocalis!
Mildew: On clematis leaves and some geraniums (partly dealt with by pruning & partly by spraying)
Moles: We have massive mole problems here in Cheshire. One has decided to tunnel along the front of our house and under our front lawn this year – but I just clear up the mess and firm the molehills down. I also had one in one of my back garden borders which partially uprooted some plants, but I just firmed them back in. I just don’t have the heart or the stomach to use traps!
Slugs & Snails: Considering I have a north facing garden and the wet year we’ve had – surprisingly low levels. I use pellets (sorry again!) particularly around new plants that may be susceptible but otherwise tolerate them.
Vine Weevil: Have already been covered above. I spotted a few adults and will let you know next year if the nematodes worked!