I'm starting to rethink my planting plans in view of possible future droughts. I have starting to get rid of some of my pots and will reduce the number I have left as I can no longer physically cope with the watering. We live on a hill with a fairly large garden which is mostly either terraced or on a slope. We have nine water butts but I can empty these in one day if I watered everything.
I'm not replacing anything that died last year because of the drought, although thankfully at the moment I think most things survived, will know later in the Spring. Even the old hydrangeas (in full sunshine) survived with no extra water.
I will wait until spring to see what has survived and go from there. Shrubs seem ok. The perennials are a concern. Naturally, the weeds like hairy bittercress and PITA like vinca are doing just fine.
If one mantra applies to any plant, "one year's seed is seven years weed". applies to hairy bittercress. It hides itself, it hides its flowers and explodes its seeds, which germinate any where in any season. Constant, I mean constant, hand weeding is needed to call it a draw. My nomination for weed of the year every year.
Vinca minor is my friend, I call it "groundcover". It's in the shade so rarely flowers. It came with the house in white, blue, purple and double purple.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I had 3000 litres of mushroom compost and 1500 litres of horse manure delivered
Back in '76, I visited Reuthe's nursery in Kent. They had had a large quantity of extracted hops delivered that had been dumped near some large stock rhodendrons. These suffered badly. The staff guessed copper contamination.
So caution with mulch.
How much mulch does a compost heap supply? I get less than 1cm per area of mixed borders. The TV presenters say unrealistically 3-4 inches (sic. Imperial). They are unaware of cost and are protected from the hard work at the mineface. I have to proritise only certain plants.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I have a small border by my back door that gets very little sun,also very dry. I decided to keep it simple, plant and repeat Polystichum setiferum, Euonymous Green Rocket and Asarum Europaeum. It had worked well for the last few years but now cyclamen and arum have taken over. This morning I cleared the whole border, leaving the ferns and Euonymous .I cleared the cyclamen and arum, replanting the Asarum. At present it looks newly planted but the Asarum already has new leaves appearing so the border will soon look settled again. These plants are all tough tackling this job so early in the year wouldn't be my plan but do it in a few weeks and it is dry I will give myself more watering. Making decisions whether or not to split plants this spring will be difficult as everything will be reliant on water. Hence the early start on some really tough plants.
I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
I really limit watering (mainly to newly planted trees and shrubs in their first year) and keep pots to a minimum. 3 waterbutts worked well us last year with the drought and I only had to use tap water twice all year. All beds are covered in woodchip.
Plans for the next couple of years are greatly increasing planting by reducing lawn and patio size. So I expect to need another water butt to help everything with establishing. Front garden lawn going this year and shrubs and plants arriving March/April. Shady ones should be ok without water but full sun shrubs probably need some in drought. There will be a thick layer of woodchip mulch as well.
Little (2m-ish) wildlife pond hopefully going in so that probably needs another waterbutt as well for topping up.
Hopefully changing the back garden patio and planting in the future should stop it becoming quite so baking hot there.
I'm going to experiment with Oyas this year, not buy the expensive ones, make my own from terracotta pots with lids, anyone care to join me in this experiment?
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I'm not replacing anything that died last year because of the drought, although thankfully at the moment I think most things survived, will know later in the Spring. Even the old hydrangeas (in full sunshine) survived with no extra water.
Vinca minor is my friend, I call it "groundcover". It's in the shade so rarely flowers. It came with the house in white, blue, purple and double purple.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
So caution with mulch.
How much mulch does a compost heap supply? I get less than 1cm per area of mixed borders. The TV presenters say unrealistically 3-4 inches (sic. Imperial). They are unaware of cost and are protected from the hard work at the mineface. I have to proritise only certain plants.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
It had worked well for the last few years but now cyclamen and arum have taken over. This morning I cleared the whole border, leaving the ferns and Euonymous .I cleared the cyclamen and arum, replanting the Asarum.
At present it looks newly planted but the Asarum already has new leaves appearing so the border will soon look settled again.
These plants are all tough tackling this job so early in the year wouldn't be my plan but do it in a few weeks and it is dry I will give myself more watering. Making decisions whether or not to split plants this spring will be difficult as everything will be reliant on water. Hence the early start on some really tough plants.
Plans for the next couple of years are greatly increasing planting by reducing lawn and patio size. So I expect to need another water butt to help everything with establishing. Front garden lawn going this year and shrubs and plants arriving March/April. Shady ones should be ok without water but full sun shrubs probably need some in drought. There will be a thick layer of woodchip mulch as well.
Little (2m-ish) wildlife pond hopefully going in so that probably needs another waterbutt as well for topping up.
Hopefully changing the back garden patio and planting in the future should stop it becoming quite so baking hot there.