Small shady spot - what to plant?
Hello
We have just moved into a new house and have inherited uncared for gardens. The back I'm not to worried about at the moment as it's a quite big and mainly laid to lawn so with a bit of general housekeeping done to it and a few summer pots it will soon look better. It's the small patch out the front which needs sorting. It's only about 4ft x 4ft and was a complete mass of weeds, which have now been pulled out. It slopes slightly towards the house and has steps on 2 sides. It's also west facing but is shaded from the south by the storeroom so doesn't get hardly any sun. I would ideally like to plant something there which can be left to pretty much look after itself but I'm drawn between planting a conifer with ground cover plants or a fern or a hydrangea.... Any inspiration much appreciated!! BTW I'm in Stevenage Herts Thanks Lisa |
Small shady spot - what to plant?
"Lisap470" wrote in message ... Hello We have just moved into a new house and have inherited uncared for gardens. The back I'm not to worried about at the moment as it's a quite big and mainly laid to lawn so with a bit of general housekeeping done to it and a few summer pots it will soon look better. It's the small patch out the front which needs sorting. It's only about 4ft x 4ft and was a complete mass of weeds, which have now been pulled out. It slopes slightly towards the house and has steps on 2 sides. It's also west facing but is shaded from the south by the storeroom so doesn't get hardly any sun. I would ideally like to plant something there which can be left to pretty much look after itself Yourself. With a long cool drink. Steve |
Small shady spot - what to plant?
On Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:01:46 +0000, Lisap470
wrote: pruned a bit I would ideally like to plant something there which can be left to pretty much look after itself but I'm drawn between planting a conifer with ground cover plants or a fern or a hydrangea.... Any inspiration much appreciated!! BTW I'm in Stevenage Herts Thanks Lisa First of all, I'd suggest that you avoid conifers. They have a habit of growing a lot larger than you want and the slower growing ones can be susceptible to browning at the bottom if neighbourhood cats choose to "scent" them. If you want "low maintenance" then as a first step you might want to consider digging up the small front lawn (as otherwise you'll have to cut the grass and you'll still get weeds), then lay some weed-supressing membrane, planting through the membrane (you cut cross-slits where you want to plant something and then fold the membrane back over the root ball) and then covering that with chippings. As to planting, you could then create a decent centre-piece with the fern and hydrangea you've already thought of together with, maybe, a skimmia and a sarcococca. The latter two are evergreen and have the added benefit of flowers and berries in the first case and flowers and glorious scent in the second so you have year round interest. The hydrangea will need a little bit of seasonal attention and the fern will need its dead fronds removed once a year but that's all the work you'll have, really, at least until you need to do a bit of "containment pruning" in a few years' time. Cheers Jake |
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Mulch with some very dark coloured mulch or even sedge peat to bring out the colour of the foliages ! best of luck, Lannerman |
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