This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Tall plants for a north facing wall?
In the spritit of last weeks GW I decided to get the mower out and cut some paths through the grass to the north of the barn. I'm also in the process of rebuilding the small dry stone wall here (its leaning back and needs some underpinning) and have cleared an area of nettles in front of it.
This area doesnt really get much sun . It faces directly north and is shaded by the wall and the barn.. I was thinking of filling it with white foxgloves but is there an alternative for a similar effect that will cope with almost total shade or would foxgloves cope.
0
Posts
I think white foxgloves would love it there.
We grow foxgloves, honeysuckle and some clematis and roses against a north facing fencne.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
My only issue with foxgloves is I get confused about what you should do to keep them there year after year.
Foxgloves will seed freely, your'e more likely to have too many rather than too few.
Basically you don't do anything much. I'd set some white foxglove seeds and scatter them there now. They're biennials so they'll off this year, disappear over winter, reappear next spring and bloom about now. Then they will scatter their seeds and most of them will die and you pull them up in the autumn/winter.
Next spring I'd scatter some more white seeds about, so you have succession the following year, but after that they'll probably seed themselves about quite happily.
If you've got wild ones about they'll probably cross-pollinate and you'll get some with the pinky mauve hues - you can usually tell those plants as they're beginning to develop flower spikes if not before, as they have pinkish tinges, so if you want to keep to all white ones you can pull the pink ones out.
If you get a lot of cross-pollinated ones you might find it better just to scatter some white seeds every spring.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thanks.. I'll get some seeds and get going..
ighten, there was a whole feature on climbers and the aspects they are best suited to on Beechgrove Gardens last Thursday (presented by the lovely Chris Beardshaw).
Link to the accompanying fact sheet below, sorry don't know how to turn it into a link.
http://thebeechgrovegarden.com/images/factsheets/Factsheet_7_1.pdf