"Willow" wrote in message
news
Hi

I finally got someone in to fix the retic in my enclosed garden today. The
soil is in bad shape, it's grey sand & is water repellant, & the garden is
in a position where it gets a little direct sunlight on summer mornings &
no
direct sunlight the rest of the year.

I started today by cleaning out the leaf litter & bricks, attacking the
soil
with soil wetter & tomorrow will dig composted mulch and a mix of
different
animal poos into the soil. I might put the mostly well composted leaf
litter
back on top once this is done... not sure yet.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to the kinds of plants that might do
well in the garden? It's already got a couple of medium sized umbrella
trees
but that's it. Because this garden is visible from the bath, I would
eventually like to put some lights in the garden & so I guess some nice
looking foliage would be the go... I was thinking of maybe some Clivia or
fishbone ferns in the front to cover the view of the paving...

How would grasses & Yucca go in this kind of environment? I'm not all that
fussed about flowers & leafy green foliage.

--
Wanda
aka Willow
The missing and definitely not to be taken seriously under any
circumstances
garden gnome
http://www.2000cn.com.au/~willow

~~faeries are able to fly because they take themselves lightly~



No Yucca... it likes sun sun and more sun. Mondo grass might survive.

Spider plant? Looks nice for the first couple of years if you keep water up
to it, but eventually gets icky.

Periwinkle? A really bad weed in shaded wet areas, but in an enclosed area
this is not a problem.

You could go with the water theme and put in a pond with small fountain and
goldfish.

If I were you I'd probably get a few nice large pots to put amongst the less
fancy permanent plantings, and also get a small hand trolley to shift them
safely. Then you can rotate nice stuff into view and give the plants a
holiday on your back verandah when they get tired.