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What to grow around a raised bed

AHRAHR Posts: 361
in Garden design

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 Good morning 

 

i have a old pond (see pictures) that i was planing to put in the ground and grow some plants in. This can not be done  due to wast and water pipes under the ground so i am now thinking of making it a raised bed (open to opinions). 

i am planning to use this due to the soil condition we have in our front garden. 

obviously if i do use this as a raised bed its going to look ugly? i was wondering if there is any thing i could grow around the old pond to hide it and make it look better?

someone mentioned growing box or ivy? open to opinions 

 

thanks for reading

i hope it makes sense    

Posts

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    At the moment the garden centres are full of aubretia -  once that gets established it would trail over the sides quite nicely and look pretty at this time of year.


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





  • BluebaronBluebaron Posts: 226
    You can buy stickers for wheelie bins with pretty flowers on maybe you can cut one to size. That way it will loom could all year around.
  • TopbirdTopbird Posts: 8,352
    You could surround the container with attractive large stones, small boulders, flints, pebbles - whatever you can dig out of your garden or find at the GC. This would hide most of the sides of the pond liner & you could then plant some of the trailing plants suggested above to trail over them. If you choose your stones carefully you might even be able to push compost into the spaces and grow the sort of plants which thrive in stone walls.

    To finish it off I would top dress the pond liner with pebbles.

    (It's a mini rockery really!)

    Don't forget to make some drainage holes in the pond liner unless you want to grow bog plants.
    Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
  • BoaterBoater Posts: 241

    I was thinking an easy way to hide it would be to get some log rolls to wrap around it.

    If you like topiary a small box hedge planted in a circle around it would be awesome - quite formal and might take a few years to mature and really hide it, and probably a lot of maintenance.

    Google 'small formal hedge' for loads of images to inspire!

  • BoaterBoater Posts: 241

    Just spotted this one image

    http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/494710321-image-of-formal-garden-with-buxus-hedge-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=ig1NpWcdxfWPAQjd8mVIckEk%2fnwNtnYI8s6GdB879IQTjPUYXY7NVEh3OViIpPBP

     

     

  • BoaterBoater Posts: 241

    oops, reposted!

  • BeccaTBeccaT Posts: 8

    I think either box or yew (if you are worried about blight) around the pond would look great all year round. Take some time to shape but would be a great foil for any plants you decided to put in the pond. Very classy and a good contrast to the gravel.

  • bekkie hughesbekkie hughes Posts: 5,294
    Hi image



    If the soil is as bad as you say, you possibly wont have much success growing things around the raised bed, so its either a trailer like Dove suggested or as Topbird suggested, large stones. I suppose you could do a mix of both which would look nice. Keep your eye on ebay etc, i had a pile of rockery stone from there for nothing! image
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