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Planting ideas for a war memorial
with Britain in Bloom in mind, I've volunteered to help restore and replant our local war memorial in Malton, north Yorks. We'd be grateful for any planting ideas you guys might have. the memorial is situated on a mound, bordered with low stone walls, so there's potential for lots of trailing plants.
We were thinking of a colour scheme of red white and blue, plus box to give structure, and possibly Peace roses. So fiels poppies, geraniums, nasturtiums and lobelia will come into play, but if anyone can suggest any more imaginative planting, fire away!
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Box can be problematic these days with all the box blight about so think instead of using lonicera nitida which also lends itself to close clipping.
If you're planting roses you'll need to enrich the soil to keep them well and that won't be good for field poppies so try oriental poppies instead. You can get red ones with a black centre - Ladybird - or plain scarlet red ones. Their flowering season is short but they will come up year after year.
Nasturtiums flower well in poor soils but produce mostly leaves in rich soils but a short patio clematis will love the enriched soil for roses and can be trailed down walls. Have a look at the websites of Taylors and Thornycroft. These clematis just need a hard prune every spring and then can be left to get on with it tho they'll appreciate an annual feed in spring and mulch in autumn.
I suspect a red, white and blue theme will be difficult to get looking right with yellow and pnk Peace roses so maybe think about a white rose such as Iceberg, red or white clematis, red hyacinths and/or tulips with red poppies and geum Mrs Bradshaw for later on with blue from hyacinths followed by lobelia to extend the season.
Hi MuddleUp, first, many thanks for your interest in our project, and let me apologise for my tardy reply. I've been laid low by a horrible stomach virus and horrendous cough, feel dreadful and have barely looked at my iPad last few days.
Currently the memorial is mostly covered with crazy paving, some of which we've removed round the edges to make wider borders, of which there are only two but quite long. We've been donated some good topsoil, so that should be fine. There is one planter, not very big. We were going to add more planters, but there's a spanner in the works as it turns out the council are going to do a £90K refurb on the memorial in 2018, with the help of lottery funding. Which is great, but they've asked us to scale back our plans till the work is complete, as it would be money wasted. So we're just concentrating on getting it looking good for Malton in Bloom this year, then we'lol think about more permanent planting after 2018.
The overall scheme will be red, with touches of other subtle colours from things like verbena bonariensis, and clipped box shapes to provide the 'bones' of the scheme. Apparently quite a lot of points are gained for being wildlife friendly, so any ideas you might have on that front would be most welcome!
yes there are volunteers, two of us plus the local Cadets have volunteered to do heavy work. Yes it does need to be low maintenance as there's no access to water nearby. And there is a limited budget, though local garden centres etc have been very generous in providing us with plants. Oh, and did I mention there's a socking great tree in the middle of the memorial site? Could give us shade problems in summer. Wish I could send you a photo but I don't have a smart phone and can't get to the site anyway as bed-ridden!
Googled a pic for you ?
Hope it's the right one!
Yes, that is the right pic, including the socking great tree! Thanks so much for all your splendid ideas, MuddleUp. Will put them all forward to the volunteers, I particularly like rosemary for remembrance.
I'm still feeling absolutely dreadful, so please forgive the short reply. Feel nauseous and as weak as a kitten. Worst bit is boredom, I can't do anything and it's driving me crazy!
Angie, Get well soon, all the family had the same a few weeks ago know how you feel.
If the Council are going to make a major make over next year why not just use planters, ask for donations of planters and make a feature of them. As an old soldier and seeing the state of some memorials anything would be an improvement to most. Tidy it up fill some planters with flowering plants then wait until you see what the Council intend doing next year. Knowing Councils and their budget worries it may not happen, ask for more details. Just a thought.
Frank.