Hi everyone Mey self and my partenr have just moved into a new property and now have our very own garden I would like some help or tips or whatever you can provide me with, I have a few problems here the garden gets quite wet, when i say wet i mean it has sort of a mini flood when it rains so to me it seems i need something in the garden that drinks a lot. (any recommendations?)

also Im ripping out everything to start freshthe bushes in this garden are horrible, we already have a basic idea of what we want to do tio the garden ill post pics of the garden soon.

so yeah thanks for takiung the time to read this.

I've planted a swamp cypress in mine ;-)

Try and resist the urge to rip everything out. Especially, don't go digging up any beds if you can avoid it - a lot of plants will be dormant at this time of year, so if you can, try not to disturb too much before the summer, when you may find you have a lot of plants coming up that you really like.

Meanwhile, watch the garden, see which bits get the sun, which are always in the shade. Come the summer, you may be glad of the wetness as it may mean you don't need to spend time watering.

If possible, don't try and do the whole garden at once - choose one bit to deal with, get that sorted, and when it's functioning nicely, move on to another bit. Meanwhile, the bits you're not dealing with, just keep grass mown and edges trimmed and it'll look tidy (and a lot less offensive that a bit you've dug and haven't had time to plant and which is beginningto grow a crop of weeds).

Remember too, that you can't make a garden, they need to grow, and it's in two or three years time that it'll really begin to come into its own.

well as i said we already have a plan for what we would like to do the garden, ive started in one corner anyway and i plan on ripping out the horrible eyesore that is there. there is also obviously nothing in this garden that i would like to keep it wasn't very well looked after before we moved here. would a swamp cypress grow in the uk??

Yes, it'll grow in the UK, but it's a huge tree - I'm not recommending it!

How bad is your drainage problem - how deep does the water get? How often? How long does it take to drain away? Is there anywhere for it to drain to, or is your garden at the lowest point? My garden gets up to 6inches deep at the bottom end, but it drains away within 24 hours, so I don't worry about it, and just make sure I don't grow plants that like good drainage.

Whereabouts in the country are you?

Is your soil sandy or clay-ey? How well will it hold moisture in the summer?

On 05/04/2014 11:36, unicron85 wrote:
Hi everyone Mey self and my partenr have just moved into a new property
and now have our very own garden I would like some help or tips or
whatever you can provide me with, I have a few problems here the garden
gets quite wet, when i say wet i mean it has sort of a mini flood when
it rains so to me it seems i need something in the garden that drinks a
lot. (any recommendations?)

What sort of soil? Heavy clay? If it really is badly waterlogged a pond
or bog garden at the lowest point might be worth considering. My garden
isn't quite that wet but the dampest end supports adult frogs somehow.

also Im ripping out everything to start freshthe bushes in this garden
are horrible, we already have a basic idea of what we want to do tio the
garden ill post pics of the garden soon.

Garden make-over programmes have a lot to answer for. What you propose
is both expensive and probably a lot of unnecessary work.

The usual advice unless there are pernicious weed like groundelder,
nettles and brambles which you should deal with immediately is to leave
it for the first season tidying up or if you *really* don't like them
grubbing up established plants *after* they have flowered. That way you
get to see what you already have in the garden for free. You might
otherwise unknowingly zap some beautiful rare specimen plant.

It will take a couple of years to tidy up any badly maintained shrubs,
but you can prune most things with impunity after flowering and again in
late autumn or winter. Most things will regenerate if pruned properly
and a good book on pruning from the library will help.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

it gets about two to three inches deep and it took about a day and a half so not too long really i'd just prefer it to be gone as theres no visible area of drainage. the soil is like a clay-ey (to use your term) mud but no actual clay (or none ive seen yet as i am yet to start doing any digging).

On 2014-04-05 10:36:44 +0000, unicron85 said:

Hi everyone Mey self and my partenr have just moved into a new property
and now have our very own garden I would like some help or tips or
whatever you can provide me with, I have a few problems here the garden
gets quite wet, when i say wet i mean it has sort of a mini flood when
it rains so to me it seems i need something in the garden that drinks a
lot. (any recommendations?)

also Im ripping out everything to start freshthe bushes in this garden
are horrible, we already have a basic idea of what we want to do tio the
garden ill post pics of the garden soon.

so yeah thanks for takiung the time to read this.

Don't do ANYTHING drastic for a year in terms of ripping out plants or
even hacking them about. Wait until you see what you've got because you
never know if there are some treasures waiting to spring to life. And
to start with, go over the lawn with a fork and just plunge the fork in
and out about 18" apart. It may just be that it needs the soil
aerating. Do you neighbours have that problem. Whereabouts is the new
home? And lastly, you can't send photos to uk.rec.gardening but you can
put them on one of the free photo sites and provide a link to them.
Gardenbanter is a forum which takes posts from many newsgroups and uses
them without our permission! But in itself, it won't answer questions -
it's a commercial advertising tool.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

"plants that drink a lot" won't be enough to solve that. If there's somewhere it could drain to, then you could put in some drainage. Otherwise, you'll need to plant things that don't mind getting their feet wet now and again.

the fact you describe it as mud suggests it doesn't have a very high humus content.

A good way to distinguish between sandy and clay soils is to roll a bit of soil between your fingers. If you can roll it into a ball, or even a worm, without it falling apart, then it's a clay soil. Clay plus humus = loam, so it's not a bad thing to have.

I se its a clay soil then sorry i uyse the term mud as like i say im new to this, the closest i have ever previously come to gardening is mowing the grass. im expanding

On 05/04/2014 11:36, unicron85 wrote:

Hi everyone Mey self and my partenr have just moved into a new property
and now have our very own garden I would like some help or tips or
whatever you can provide me with, I have a few problems here the garden
gets quite wet, when i say wet i mean it has sort of a mini flood when
it rains so to me it seems i need something in the garden that drinks a
lot. (any recommendations?)

also Im ripping out everything to start freshthe bushes in this garden
are horrible, we already have a basic idea of what we want to do tio the
garden ill post pics of the garden soon.

so yeah thanks for takiung the time to read this.




Welcome to uk.rec.gardening (via garden banter) and congratulations on
gaining a garden.

To help us deal with your problems and answer your questions, it would
help to know roughly where you live and what type of soil you have. It
does sound like very heavy clay or improved clay which has become
compacted, but it could be that you have moved to a flood plain (the 'L'
is silent, and pronouced 'pain'). Forgive my sense of humour, but we've
all seen pictures of flooded homes and gardens, so I hope yours is safe
from that fate. It may be that you just need to improve drainage.

Pictures of the garden as a whole and shrubs individually would help.
Not everything that looks horrible now will necessarily be horrible
later, so hold fire on all that 'ripping' until you know what you've
got. There are plants that cope well with wet conditions, so I'm sure
everyone here will have suggestions. Perhaps you could give an idea of
the size of the overall garden as well as the soggy area, so we know
whether to suggest trees, shrubs or herbaceous plants for the problem area.

--
Spider.
On high ground in SE London
gardening on heavy clay

On 05/04/2014 19:28, Spider wrote:
On 05/04/2014 11:36, unicron85 wrote:

Hi everyone Mey self and my partenr have just moved into a new property
and now have our very own garden I would like some help or tips or
whatever you can provide me with, I have a few problems here the garden
gets quite wet, when i say wet i mean it has sort of a mini flood when
it rains so to me it seems i need something in the garden that drinks a
lot. (any recommendations?)

also Im ripping out everything to start freshthe bushes in this garden
are horrible, we already have a basic idea of what we want to do tio the
garden ill post pics of the garden soon.

so yeah thanks for takiung the time to read this.




Welcome to uk.rec.gardening (via garden banter) and congratulations on
gaining a garden.

To help us deal with your problems and answer your questions, it would
help to know roughly where you live and what type of soil you have. It
does sound like very heavy clay or improved clay which has become
compacted, but it could be that you have moved to a flood plain (the 'L'
is silent, and pronouced 'pain'). Forgive my sense of humour, but we've
all seen pictures of flooded homes and gardens, so I hope yours is safe
from that fate. It may be that you just need to improve drainage.

Pictures of the garden as a whole and shrubs individually would help.
Not everything that looks horrible now will necessarily be horrible
later, so hold fire on all that 'ripping' until you know what you've
got. There are plants that cope well with wet conditions, so I'm sure
everyone here will have suggestions. Perhaps you could give an idea of
the size of the overall garden as well as the soggy area, so we know
whether to suggest trees, shrubs or herbaceous plants for the problem area.


As you may have gathered, the more info you can give then the better the
answers you will get.
It's like asking "How do I cook food"?
As everyone else has said, don't rush, there may be a lot of things
still under the soil, bulbs, dormant rhizomes etc.
If in doubt about something then a couple of links to pictures will help
together with an indication of size.

No don't worry. I was thinking that you said mud as it was fairly fine grained stuff, not fibrous like, say, the contents of a growbag. If the garden hasn't been looked after, then it's quite likely that there isn't a lot of humus, so think about whether you can fit in a compost heap.

On 2014-04-05 14:38:52 +0000, unicron85 said:

kay;1000584 Wrote:
I've planted a swamp cypress in mine ;-)

Try and resist the urge to rip everything out. Especially, don't go
digging up any beds if you can avoid it - a lot of plants will be
dormant at this time of year, so if you can, try not to disturb too much
before the summer, when you may find you have a lot of plants coming up
that you really like.

Meanwhile, watch the garden, see which bits get the sun, which are
always in the shade. Come the summer, you may be glad of the wetness as
it may mean you don't need to spend time watering.

If possible, don't try and do the whole garden at once - choose one bit
to deal with, get that sorted, and when it's functioning nicely, move on
to another bit. Meanwhile, the bits you're not dealing with, just keep
grass mown and edges trimmed and it'll look tidy (and a lot less
offensive that a bit you've dug and haven't had time to plant and which
is beginningto grow a crop of weeds).

Remember too, that you can't make a garden, they need to grow, and it's
in two or three years time that it'll really begin to come into its own.

well as i said we already have a plan for what we would like to do the
garden, ive started in one corner anyway and i plan on ripping out the
horrible eyesore that is there. there is also obviously nothing in this
garden that i would like to keep it wasn't very well looked after before
we moved here. would a swamp cypress grow in the uk??

There's nothing obvious about it, as yet. Several things won't even
have started to poke their heads through the soil in cold areas.
Whereabouts do you live? South Cornwall, Yorkshire, Highlands of
Scotland?
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

On 2014-04-06 12:16:30 +0000, Martin said:

On Sun, 6 Apr 2014 11:14:40 +0100, Sacha wrote:

On 2014-04-05 14:38:52 +0000, unicron85 said:

kay;1000584 Wrote:
I've planted a swamp cypress in mine ;-)

Try and resist the urge to rip everything out. Especially, don't go
digging up any beds if you can avoid it - a lot of plants will be
dormant at this time of year, so if you can, try not to disturb too much
before the summer, when you may find you have a lot of plants coming up
that you really like.

Meanwhile, watch the garden, see which bits get the sun, which are
always in the shade. Come the summer, you may be glad of the wetness as
it may mean you don't need to spend time watering.

If possible, don't try and do the whole garden at once - choose one bit
to deal with, get that sorted, and when it's functioning nicely, move on
to another bit. Meanwhile, the bits you're not dealing with, just keep
grass mown and edges trimmed and it'll look tidy (and a lot less
offensive that a bit you've dug and haven't had time to plant and which
is beginningto grow a crop of weeds).

Remember too, that you can't make a garden, they need to grow, and it's
in two or three years time that it'll really begin to come into its own.

well as i said we already have a plan for what we would like to do the
garden, ive started in one corner anyway and i plan on ripping out the
horrible eyesore that is there. there is also obviously nothing in this
garden that i would like to keep it wasn't very well looked after before
we moved here. would a swamp cypress grow in the uk??

There's nothing obvious about it, as yet. Several things won't even
have started to poke their heads through the soil in cold areas.
Whereabouts do you live? South Cornwall, Yorkshire, Highlands of
Scotland?

Judging from BBC TV Local news the daffodils have already finished in parts of
frigid Yorkshire :-)

It's a funny year. Some people are saying theirs are over (of course,
so much depends on variety) others are saying their tulips are out and
ours are still just thinking about it - again, variety but also
location and conditions.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

"Sacha" wrote
It's a funny year. Some people are saying theirs are over (of course, so
much depends on variety) others are saying their tulips are out and ours
are still just thinking about it - again, variety but also location and
conditions.

Our Dafs are well and truly over as are the primroses, and our tulips are in
full flower although they haven't opened today. Bluebells are out around
here already.

--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK