Hi,
I moved house the last summer .The garden was nice, a bit wild with different kind of flowers like fuschia,roses, primroses,forget-me-not,geraniums etc. The winter has past and now my garden looks very different. Totaly new flowers emerged which I did not plant .Some of them are bluebells, brookside, some unkown which I have yet to discover (once they start blooming),deffodils, wild hyiacints(?) and STRAWBERRIES(Irecognise their leaves) all over the place! It all looks very interesting but the problem is there are TOO many of all these flowers, I have a feeling that they will suffocate each other if I dont do somethig about it. I am totaly unexperianced gardener and have no idea which one to take out and where since they are ALL flowers,NOT weeds. Besides, I would like to have strawberries to eat but they are mixed with all the other flowers.
Please give me some advise what to do? Thank you.
Dina

Mark those plants you like enough to keep. Take out those that are not marked. Plants will adapt to the space available, but you will want to put in new things so you need to start making new space.

Check carefully that they are really strawberries, and if so prepare a bed and move them all into it. They will not do well scattered amongst everything else.

Make a plan of your garden, mark on it the plants you want to keep. Start working out what you want your garden to do and to look like. Then you can start to re-lay it to your satisfaction.

Remember - there is a growing view that a little untidiness is a good thing for wildlife.

dina wrote:
Hi,
I moved house the last summer .The garden was nice, a bit wild with
different kind of flowers like fuschia,roses,
primroses,forget-me-not,geraniums etc. The winter has past and now my
garden looks very different. Totaly new flowers emerged which I did not
plant .Some of them are bluebells, brookside, some unkown which I have
yet to discover (once they start blooming),deffodils, wild hyiacints(?)
and STRAWBERRIES(Irecognise their leaves) all over the place! It all
looks very interesting but the problem is there are TOO many of all
these flowers, I have a feeling that they will suffocate each other if
I dont do somethig about it. I am totaly unexperianced gardener and
have no idea which one to take out and where since they are ALL
flowers,NOT weeds. Besides, I would like to have strawberries to eat
but they are mixed with all the other flowers.
Please give me some advise what to do? Thank you.
Dina


A lot of gardeners really strive for what you're describing - can't see
an inch of soil and natural weed suppression! For me, shrubs and
perennials surrounded by bare soil are very depressing.
Take some photos of what you've got and put them onto a web site where
this group can look at them - something like tinypic - and advise you.
Most/many shrubs can be kept under control by judicious pruning at the
right time of year, if they're genuinely too big. I think the previous
owners of your garden sound as if they knew their stuff if they planted
strawberries all over the place because when you're on your knees,
weeding, it's a delight to discover a strawberry to refresh you! They
may well have planted the tiny fraise des bois which are deliciously
sweet and have such pretty flowers. One quick way to make a garden look
really tidy is to mow the lawn and trim the lawn edges. But it sounds
to me as if you've got some really good stuff in there. As to pruning
and getting started at the right time etc. look at the Dr Hessayon range
of gardening books. They're excellent helpers.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

dina writes

Hi,
I moved house the last summer .The garden was nice, a bit wild with
different kind of flowers like fuschia,

Fuchsia was named after a Mr Fuchs. Strange how nearly everyone
mis-spells it ;-)

roses,
primroses,forget-me-not,geraniums etc. The winter has past and now my
garden looks very different. Totaly new flowers emerged which I did not
plant .Some of them are bluebells,

They'll die down by mid summer.

brookside,

?? Brooklime? But that likes very wt conditions, so is it perhaps
germander speedwell?

some unkown which I have
yet to discover (once they start blooming),deffodils, wild hyiacints(?)

Daffodils and hyacinths will also die down by mid summer, so you can
safely leave them ready to bring some colour next spring. By wild
hyacinth, so you mean something that looks like a rather skinny pot
hyacinth (in which case it is probably just that - they don't do very
well if you keep them in pots year after year, but will go on for years
in the garden as a sort of rather tubby bluebell) or do you mean a bulb
with a few blue flowers on separate stalks, which is perhaps a scilla?

and STRAWBERRIES(Irecognise their leaves) all over the place!

They may be garden strawberries, or they may be alpine type - fruit
about marble size but incredibly intense flavour, well worth having in a
garden.

It all
looks very interesting but the problem is there are TOO many of all
these flowers, I have a feeling that they will suffocate each other if
I dont do somethig about it.

It's a matter of making a lot of small decisions 'which of these two
plants do I like most?' The bulbs will die down later in the year, so
aren't a problem unless you have something choice and early trying to
struggle up underneath them. And some people find bluebells invasive, so
they limit their spread by pulling up any that are in the wrong place.

If you leave something to grow, it is not irreversible - you can pull it
out later. If on the other hand you pull something up now, then that is
irreversible! So I'd be inclined to pull out as little as possible. Just
watch what is happening, what is growing where, and just clear a little
space round any treasures that emerge if you think they need it.

I also moved into a garden with a lot of plants, and lots of alpine type
strawberries - they grow anywhere that I haven't planted anything else.
So what I did, once I knew what I had (ideally take a full year just
seeing what grows where in all the seasons) was decide the things I
liked, and the things that I didn't feel were pulling their weight or
which were just too abundant. So, for example, whenever I wanted to
plant a clump of anything, I'd dig out a Sedum spectabile to make room
;-)

And I've now decided to limit strawberries to a 6inch border around all
the beds. There may be no limit to how many strawberries I can eat, but
there is a limit to how many I have the patience to pick!

The upshot of all this is - don't panic! You have time to watch things,
and make space around anything that seems to be struggling. You can let
the garden tell you what you need to do.


--
Kay

Hi,
thank you very much for all your replies. I like my garden the way it is but I wonder these flowers like daffodils,hycints, tulips(my husband planted them last autumn) , something which I think are wild hyacints? (they are bulbs,blue-each flower on one stem and have VERY long thin leaves like a grass.They look very pretty and they spread all over the place but they are drying out now.) I wonder should I simply let all these bulb plants(including deffodils) dry,without taking them out? I want to have them again next year.It is really interesting to watch all these different flowers grow and bloom at different time of the year.
There is one more thing. I would like to know which kind of plant is this:
it has leaves shape like dandalions but longer, it is high about almost 30-40inch.,even the flowers are yelow,shape like dandalions but more of them.It is like a bush.I am not sure I like it but I would like to know if it is wild. Does anybody know ?
Dina