I love magnolia trees.... Just saying. My father had about 3 beautiful ones in his garden and I'd love to be able to grow them and have tried but we get serious snow and ice and frost so I've given up trying.
You didn't say whereabouts you were and that is going to determine what's going to be viable. As well as what sort of soil you have e.g. well drained/clay? I'd also suggest get yourself along to somewhere locally where say there's a nice garden open to the public and get some ideas for planting. If you go to a local nursery where there's proper professionals who are growing plants and not just shop assistants who sell bought in hot house kept stuff, you'll get ideas there too for your area.
Other thing to consider is stuff like:
how easy do you want it to be?: Do you want to be able to have cut flowers? Are you wanting colour all year round? Are there colours you dislike? Are you wanting to stick to a colour palette? Are there plants you particularly like/dislike? What style of garden do you like/dislike? How do you want to use your garden? Where do you want focal points? Anything you want to hide? Get out and about and look and start to determine now what you want. Find out from people whose gardens you like why they did what they did and whether that might suit you.
In that spirit and so you can either reject or consider here's what I wanted and did:
I've a big mainly south facing garden in the exposed and cold Scottish Borders and love gardens but am not so keen on gardening or spending all my time having to do stuff in it. I love planning and planting though. I also love lots of flowers in and around the house. I like colour or some sort of stuff of interest in the garden all year round. I've access to tonnes of well rotted organic matter and could possibly also supply every member of this forum (lots of horses!)
I've gone for the old fashioned English garden look for flower borders. All perenniels. Quite a lot of feature flowering shrubs and trees in big areas I don't want to look "gardened" and can't be bothered to spend too much time doing. I cram stuff in so that if there's weeds then they're diffucult to spot! I've 3 borders that are the whole "riot of colour and scent" every colour and smell imagineable. I've planted so that it's doing something most of the time ... except here in winter we're just buried under snow normally!
I say "like a whores bedroom"
Then I've some areas that I've sort of kept to the perenniel English cottage garden look but that are colour themed. I say a cool border (blues etc) and a hot border (obviously reds etc). I went for these because the cool area is in the only shaded and sheltered part of the south garden and so I've put seating there and wind chimes round a feature old millstone and that's where I like to sit in the evening with my book and a glass of wine.
The hot border marks the divide between my garden and the country side beyond. Because we've got fabulous big views and beautiful country with hills etc I wanted something which gave a distinct separation but that enabled me to still see over. (You'll see in my first photo above what I mean by the views south). So I've got a large run of dry stone wall raised border which keeps horses and sheep out! It's all planted "hot" and then it runs into a bit hot border further round in front and which can be seen from the house. For those who were concerned about sheep and deer etc, we have a post and wire fence with a top rail with a hot wire electric fence strip all round the top all round the perimeter. Believe me, that works.
I've also a big area that's all rhodendons and azaleas and with a big patch of various small feature flowering trees and shrubs and masses of bulbs for some colour or feature all year round. Then an area that's on rough lawn just before going to a wooded area which is just left until I get sick of nettles then those will be strimmed. There's masses of blue bells and snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils and primroses and primula planted in there though.
Last but definitely not least (for me)... I love birds and wildlife. We've got red squirrels and hedgehogs, stoat and even otters in the stream down below the house. We've a massive variety of song birds. I do a LOT of planting for colour and scent and to attract bees and to have a good food chain for the things I like. I've 7 bird feeding stations, 30 nest boxes, squirrel boxes, bat boxes etc. I always think planting for wild life is something every gardener should do and if you've got children then a bird feeding station is a great way to start to engage them to rural stuff and wildlife. It's also my excuse for leaving unkempt areas.
Your garden looks stunning, the views are amazing and the wildlife pictures are excellent. Whereabouts are you? (presumably up north somewhere) - the rhodies and azaleas are beautiful - I can only dream of growing them.
I'm sure you've given a lot of inspiration there - I certainly enjoyed it
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
I'm as far north in England as you can get. North Northumberland in the Scottish borders.
The main issue I have is "exposed" and "SERIOUS winters". We also have quite a low rainfall too. So I have an approach which means it's "survive or die". I don't want to water (private supply). Indeed I only ever water newly planted stuff and with recycled 'brown' water. I want things to put down deep roots.
I won't ever buy anything from one of those big nurseries that's just brought in from somewhere like Jersey and kept under glass. That would likely die of shock here! IF it ever survived the initial shock of wind blowing down the valley and frost for probably 6 months of the year then it would definitely die buried under the snow we get. I most definitely spend a lot of time having a good look round other people's gardens in the area and see what's survived or is doing well. More for that than for inspiration really.
So you can see what I mean. This is what happens to my flower borders in winter.... and yes those are serious icicles and my passion flower and clematis encased in a sheet of ice at the front of the house where the snow boards are on the roof! :
And this is a waist high bird bath which becomes a winter ground feeding station for my barn owls on the front lawn. I put out dead mice etc for them. The lumps are my raised bed dry stone wall "hot border" that I posted earlier and all my lovely plants buried!
I do put down a lot of well rotted horse muck round and over the plants about October time when everything is cut back and to act both to get some organic matter in and to afford some protection in winter.
Beautiful part of the world to live in - but I've only been in summer! Amazing winter pictures though - definitely warrants a 4 X 4 and a serious log pile and freezer space.
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
Wow, Northern Lass. I thought we had harsh conditions to cope with, but you beat ours hands down. It never fails to amaze me how wonderfully plants can and do survive with what is thrown at them.
Our winters go down to about minus 11 c and summers up to about 40 c. Our rainfall is low and our soil, such as it is, is poor and shale based. We rely on water from a bore that we had drilled some years ago which we pump into holding tanks for the garden (rain water collected and stored for house use).
We also have long views around the valley and enjoy the changing colours.
Photo of a hidden waterfall which appeared after a big rainfall - photo taken from front veranda.
Posts
Well I guess you need to seriously enquire about deer proof netting, if it works for farmers it should work for your patch.
I love magnolia trees.... Just saying. My father had about 3 beautiful ones in his garden and I'd love to be able to grow them and have tried but we get serious snow and ice and frost so I've given up trying.
You didn't say whereabouts you were and that is going to determine what's going to be viable. As well as what sort of soil you have e.g. well drained/clay? I'd also suggest get yourself along to somewhere locally where say there's a nice garden open to the public and get some ideas for planting. If you go to a local nursery where there's proper professionals who are growing plants and not just shop assistants who sell bought in hot house kept stuff, you'll get ideas there too for your area.
Other thing to consider is stuff like:
how easy do you want it to be?: Do you want to be able to have cut flowers? Are you wanting colour all year round? Are there colours you dislike? Are you wanting to stick to a colour palette? Are there plants you particularly like/dislike? What style of garden do you like/dislike? How do you want to use your garden? Where do you want focal points? Anything you want to hide? Get out and about and look and start to determine now what you want. Find out from people whose gardens you like why they did what they did and whether that might suit you.
In that spirit and so you can either reject or consider here's what I wanted and did:
I've a big mainly south facing garden in the exposed and cold Scottish Borders and love gardens but am not so keen on gardening or spending all my time having to do stuff in it. I love planning and planting though. I also love lots of flowers in and around the house. I like colour or some sort of stuff of interest in the garden all year round. I've access to tonnes of well rotted organic matter and could possibly also supply every member of this forum (lots of horses!)
I've gone for the old fashioned English garden look for flower borders. All perenniels. Quite a lot of feature flowering shrubs and trees in big areas I don't want to look "gardened" and can't be bothered to spend too much time doing. I cram stuff in so that if there's weeds then they're diffucult to spot! I've 3 borders that are the whole "riot of colour and scent" every colour and smell imagineable. I've planted so that it's doing something most of the time ... except here in winter we're just buried under snow normally!
I say "like a whores bedroom"
Then I've some areas that I've sort of kept to the perenniel English cottage garden look but that are colour themed. I say a cool border (blues etc) and a hot border (obviously reds etc). I went for these because the cool area is in the only shaded and sheltered part of the south garden and so I've put seating there and wind chimes round a feature old millstone and that's where I like to sit in the evening with my book and a glass of wine.
The hot border marks the divide between my garden and the country side beyond. Because we've got fabulous big views and beautiful country with hills etc I wanted something which gave a distinct separation but that enabled me to still see over. (You'll see in my first photo above what I mean by the views south). So I've got a large run of dry stone wall raised border which keeps horses and sheep out! It's all planted "hot" and then it runs into a bit hot border further round in front and which can be seen from the house. For those who were concerned about sheep and deer etc, we have a post and wire fence with a top rail with a hot wire electric fence strip all round the top all round the perimeter. Believe me, that works.
I've also a big area that's all rhodendons and azaleas and with a big patch of various small feature flowering trees and shrubs and masses of bulbs for some colour or feature all year round. Then an area that's on rough lawn just before going to a wooded area which is just left until I get sick of nettles then those will be strimmed. There's masses of blue bells and snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils and primroses and primula planted in there though.
Last but definitely not least (for me)... I love birds and wildlife. We've got red squirrels and hedgehogs, stoat and even otters in the stream down below the house. We've a massive variety of song birds. I do a LOT of planting for colour and scent and to attract bees and to have a good food chain for the things I like. I've 7 bird feeding stations, 30 nest boxes, squirrel boxes, bat boxes etc. I always think planting for wild life is something every gardener should do and if you've got children then a bird feeding station is a great way to start to engage them to rural stuff and wildlife. It's also my excuse for leaving unkempt areas.
Northern Lass - what a lovely posting.
Your garden looks stunning, the views are amazing and the wildlife pictures are excellent. Whereabouts are you? (presumably up north somewhere) - the rhodies and azaleas are beautiful - I can only dream of growing them.
I'm sure you've given a lot of inspiration there - I certainly enjoyed it
Thank you.
I'm as far north in England as you can get. North Northumberland in the Scottish borders.
The main issue I have is "exposed" and "SERIOUS winters". We also have quite a low rainfall too. So I have an approach which means it's "survive or die". I don't want to water (private supply). Indeed I only ever water newly planted stuff and with recycled 'brown' water. I want things to put down deep roots.
I won't ever buy anything from one of those big nurseries that's just brought in from somewhere like Jersey and kept under glass. That would likely die of shock here! IF it ever survived the initial shock of wind blowing down the valley and frost for probably 6 months of the year then it would definitely die buried under the snow we get. I most definitely spend a lot of time having a good look round other people's gardens in the area and see what's survived or is doing well. More for that than for inspiration really.
So you can see what I mean. This is what happens to my flower borders in winter.... and yes those are serious icicles and my passion flower and clematis encased in a sheet of ice at the front of the house where the snow boards are on the roof! :
And this is a waist high bird bath which becomes a winter ground feeding station for my barn owls on the front lawn. I put out dead mice etc for them. The lumps are my raised bed dry stone wall "hot border" that I posted earlier and all my lovely plants buried!
I do put down a lot of well rotted horse muck round and over the plants about October time when everything is cut back and to act both to get some organic matter in and to afford some protection in winter.
Beautiful part of the world to live in - but I've only been in summer! Amazing winter pictures though - definitely warrants a 4 X 4 and a serious log pile and freezer space.
Wow, Northern Lass. I thought we had harsh conditions to cope with, but you beat ours hands down. It never fails to amaze me how wonderfully plants can and do survive with what is thrown at them.
Our winters go down to about minus 11 c and summers up to about 40 c. Our rainfall is low and our soil, such as it is, is poor and shale based. We rely on water from a bore that we had drilled some years ago which we pump into holding tanks for the garden (rain water collected and stored for house use).
We also have long views around the valley and enjoy the changing colours.
Photo of a hidden waterfall which appeared after a big rainfall - photo taken from front veranda.
An occasional visitor
Harvest time Jan/Feb
Bird feeder with Crimson rosellas and Gallahs
Current state of veggie patch.
I hope you enjoy!