Replacement for overgrown ivy and heavily-trimmed shrubs in clay soil
Phil 7
Posts: 5
I am not a gardener but need to become one and would welcome suggestions for plants in clay soil:
1. what might grow quickly to create some screening cover at the top of a fence?
2. what might thrive in borders to provide some ground cover?
3. does anyone have suggestions for a light-weight screening material that might be put up?
If I may explain, in the last week, I've removed grossly overgrown ivy from a narrowish garden and cut back shrubs and tress. It had grown upwards into the shrubs and covered the trees and outward along the 3 to 6 foot borders and onto edge of the lawn. I've removed it from fence, the trees and shrubs and begun to remove it from the borders.
My landlady is horrified because this has left the garden looking rather bare (I feel it's simply exposed the garden's horrible condition. The materials removed were mostly ivy but also very overgrown shrubs and trees which seemed to have grown out to seek the light and had almost totally shaded the ground).
Worst, she feels that the garden is now exposed to view to the neighbours upstairs windows as the ivy was 2 to 3 feet high above the 6 foot fence (the trellises have rotted underneath it and have to be replaced).
In the borders there are a few sprouted bulbs but very little else; it turned out to be dry twigs, dead leaves, live and dead ivy stems and that's it. If I pull up the ivy, the impacted clay soil is otherwise almost bare.
I'm happy to do some work on opening up the soil and digging in some manure or compost if this seems advisable but I have only hand tools and limited funds.
If it's best to do that first - what could then be planted in London clay to give cover in the borders and grow quickly in the new trellises?
Many thanks for any advice and suggestions.
Posts
Phil, I feel for you - when we moved here the fences were covered with thick ivy
You've done your landlady a favour, heavy rain brought our fences down a few weeks after we'd moved in and the whole garden had to be refenced!
I suggest that if your landlady wants her property to have more privacy in the garden then she should get a builder to erect panels of trellis along the tops of the fences
and then you can plant clematis and honeysuckle etc, training them up and along the trellis.
Good luck.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Some photos would help. Your landlady may have been very fond of her overgrown jungle, I suggest using a little tact when suggesting improvements
She is worried about being overlooked, but how often did she use the garden, or is it entirely your territory?
Thank you for your suggestions. I'll invest in some honeysuckle and clematis.
What sort of growth might these plants show at this time of year?
Regarding the soil in the beds, can you (anyone) advise roughly the quantity of manure needed per square foot or metre of clay soil to mix and enrich it?
My understanding is that the clay needs to have space created within it and that mixing in manure can be the best thing for this. But how much?
If I want to put a few shrubs into the borders, it necessary to go deeper than, say, a spade's depth of 8 inches or so?
And can I then plant immediately?
artjak wrote (see)
We discussed clearing up the garden but I don't think she understood how much damage the ivy had done to the fence and was doing to the trees.
I was negligent in following through with the job once the scale became apparent. In retrospect, it would have been better to explain and discuss in more detail but, alas, it didn't occur to me and now it's too late.
I just need to complete the job and plant in such as way that restores the privacy she feels she has lost and that's where the advice is needed.
What would the photographs reveal, artjak? Do you mean photographs of the soil?
If you use well rotted manure or compost you can plant straight away. Clay really aught to be double dug then left for the frost to get to it but too late for that now. It will say on the back of the manure bags what the coverage is. If you plant deciduous shrubs the leaves will improve the soil over time. Clematis Montana is very vigorous and only needs pruning if you want to restrain it. The same goes for honeysuckle. You could plant buddleia and dogwood as they can cope with hard pruning each year and come in lots of different varieties.
Photos of the whole area may help us to advise you what to do now
when I moved into my London garden flat, the garden was probably in a similar state to yours. Very overgrown shrubs hogging the light, little else, soil very compacted and indeed sort of "sick" looking - yellowish. I double-dug one border, but having a bad back never really got round to the rest. I just "tickled" the top of the soil to open it up a bit, and in the first year, chucked loads of compost on it, topped with newspaper to thwart the weeds and covered with bark for appearances sake. I then just dug nice big holes for planting. Since then, I have just chucked organic matter - compost, leaf mould, manure, whatever - on the surface and let the worms do the work. Clay is actually very fertile. As long as you dig big planting holes, and add plenty of compost, most plants should thrive (unless they like sandy soil).
It can look pretty horrible when you hack back overgrown plants, but things will grow really quickly now and in a few weeks even, it will look better. Of course, having cleared the ground and increased the light, you will have to contend with weeds - they will have been waiting for such an opportunity and will germinate in spades.
Depending on how much light you have, I would recommend quick-growing clematis to clothe the borders and then think about a few choice shrubs. I can recommend Daphne - pretty modest most of the year, but gorgeous scent in winter and early spring. Doesn't grow too fast or too big either. Then maybe some euphorbia (they need a bit of sun, not necessarily all day). My euphorbia melifera (well, it's spelt something like that - honey-scented spurge) is just coming into flower now, and again, the scent is knock out, but there are other wonderful varieties with various outstanding features - there's bound to be one to suit, unless you garden in deep shade.
Philadelphus and deutzia have white flowers and lovely scent later in the summer. If you are on a budget and are patient, you can buy these very cheaply in several high street budget shops. Then think about perennials - hardy geranium will cover the ground and give you months of flower power.... but really, the list is endless. If you have a sunny border, enrich the soil a bit, buy some annuals and scatter them - you will get some quick-fix colour while everything else gets going and you think about longer term planting.
Good luck!
I would not plant Philadelphus (mock orange) unless you can commit the time each year or ever other year to keeping it pruned correctly once it is established. When established they are very dense with woody stems and you can't just hack them all off level without it resulting in a congested mess of stems. I have inherited one with this garden and it has taken a lot of work to improve the state of it after it had been randomly hacked.
These suggestions are greatly welcomed, Mrs G. I'll read up a bit on planting. It's strange how reassuring the familiarity of the names are. Even though I know nothing about their cultivation, clematis, buddleia and honeysuckle are immediately cheering names to read while dogwood is downright intriguing.
I will get onto it, artjak. Thanks.
I have been slightly delayed by another development. On Tuesday, a letter arrived advising of a planning application for a 4 bedroom house to be built 3 feet from our now exposed fence at the end of the garden. This has taken the heat of the planting issue although that's only because things have gone from bad to worse!