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Raised beds, rented property, suggestions please!

georgepoundgeorgepound Posts: 5
in Garden design

hi! 
We've been living in this rented house for the last couple of years and I've not been sure what to do about the raised beds in the garden. The children love them as a giant mud kitchen but they don't look great!
I'd love to put something in so that there's some interest in the garden but I'm a beginner gardener and have no idea where to start. Ideally I don't want to spend too much money either as we're renting.
The garden faces north and the beds aren't very wide 3mx80cm each. It would be great to have year round interest as you can see them from our main living space window. 
Any great ideas on how to tackle this?! Thank you! 
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Posts

  • dappledshadedappledshade Posts: 1,017
    edited April 2020
    What about planting some plants that you can take with you, if you ever have to move? 
    Ferns are nice and easy, and there are lots of types to choose from. Plants for Shade is a great site that sells plants suitable for shade, so have a look on there.
    Also some lovely hardy geraniums that prefer shade, like geranium nodosum (pink flowers from May to August) and they’ll seed about and spread.
    Underplant the lot with some late Winter bulbs, like snowdrops and aconites, so you have something nice to look at in all seasons.
    Anemone blanda (windflowers) also like it cool and shady and are lovely daisy like flowers that will self seed freely, over March and April. They come in white and in blue.
    You could even put a feature plant in there, in its pot, but sunk into the bed, so that if needs be you can always pull it back out without disturbing it, if you move.

  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    Maybe some veggie or annual flower seeds for the children to grow? That's cheap, maybe available in supermarkets and household shops that are open at the moment, and will take you up to bulb-planting time in Autumn.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • georgepoundgeorgepound Posts: 5
    Thanks! I'll look up that website, ferns are probably a good idea. I'm not too worried about taking things with me just don't want to spend hundreds, we may well be here for a while though so still want it to look good iykwim. 

  • georgepoundgeorgepound Posts: 5
    Thanks, we did try to plant some wildflower seeds last summer but tbh i was not sure which were wildflowers and which were weeds, I think the birds might have got quite a lot of the seeds! Dandelions I recognise and we've got a lot of those 😂! 
  • georgepoundgeorgepound Posts: 5
    Part of the problem too is that the soil is 20cm below the side of the bed, so in order to see the plants from inside they can't be too small. 
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    Compost sinks over time so you just need to top it up with a bag of multi-purpose compost. That will benefit any new plants you put in as well. You can probably get some from either Aldi/Lidl/Morrisons at the moment. Carrots and salad leaves would be easy to grow for the children, but any bright bedding plants from the same shops would do temporarily. Think pelargoniums (geraniums) begonia, petunia, anything you can easily get hold off at the moment. Perhaps even some sweet peas on small metal obelisks. Later, you could plant a small evergreen bush or grasses together with bulbs as already suggested.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    You could maybe top up the soil (topsoil or compost, whatever you can get hold of).
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
    The garden of my childhood home had a similar set-up - two different levels with a flower bed at the junction.  We had creeping jenny all along the edge of the bed, and it hung down like a curtain, about 2 feet long.  I loved the look of it and 60 years on, I have it as ground cover in my front garden.  That's perennial, keeps some of its leaves all winter.  You could do the same with trailing nasturtiums, but they would die off at the end of the summer.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited May 2020
    Nasturtiums! Buy one packet of seed and you’ll fill those beds. Buy the trailing ones and they’ll trail over the edges and look gorgeous. They need poor soil so you don’t need to buy any fertiliser ... and if the butterflies should come along and lay eggs on them your children can watch the caterpillars grow and you’ll have started a lifelong interest in gardening and wildlife (my daughter @WonkyWomble called her first garden a Butterfly Farm ... see pic above). 

    And every bit of nasturtium plants is edible ... flowers and leaves in salads and sandwiches, and you can pickle the seeds and use them as capers. 




    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • bazabaza Posts: 670
    This is what we did with one of ours. We rammed it full of flowers dhalias petunias. french marigolds,  pansies and it looked great

    That's how it started and how it ended up 
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