"lannerman" wrote in message
...

Phil C;863683 Wrote:
Hello,

We're not good gardeners. We have a courtyard/town garden which we
recently
had block paved (with full drainage).

We're planning on putting in a large wooden planter (2.5m long, 40cm
wide
and 50cm deep.

I went on one site and it said we would need 1 ton of topsoil to fill
it!

Can we put stuff at the bottom of it so we need less soil? Does it
need to
be top soil or is multipurpose compost ok?

We are thinking of having a couple of lavenders in it and a hardy
perennial
(?) and perhaps something else ... but nothing that grows more than
say
...... 75cm wide and 75cm high.

We want things that are low/zero maintenance, provide all year round
colour
and flower sometime in the year.

Ideally we'd like to do it in the next month or so .... but is it
something
we should leave to do next spring??

Your expert advice appreciated.

Phil

Hi, Phil, you don't say where you live ? Regarding the planter,
makesure that you have drainage holes in the bottom. If you had some
stones or rubble you could put a 20-30cm layer over the bottom, and
there is nothing to stop you using multi-purpose compost apart from the
cost. Ideally a mixture of topsoil and multi-compost or even just plain
Irish moss peat would do but try to put a layer on top of pure compost
to stop the weeds. Also its important that you leave 10cm gap between
the top of the planter and the compost to give you a watering space for
when it's very dry.




--
lannerman

Hello lannerman. Tks for the reply. All very useful. We are townies from
Gloucestershire.

Tks again.

Phil