Problem bed...
Steve the Gardening Vet
Posts: 1,630
I created a bed in the garden a few years ago and have struggled to keep it anything resembling pretty and planted nicely!
It sits in a part of the garden that misses out on early morning sun, then can get baked right through until sunset. In winter, with heavy rain it can get a bit boggy and once flooded for a week...
The success stories are hydrangea panniculata, dogwood, some sort of small conifer that I lost the label for, a smoke bush, a phygelius, hostas (I know, there is some shade from a pergola and they seem to love it!) and a spurge that grows like bloody wildfire. A couple of roses too seem quite happy. Feature plant is a flamingo salix.
I'm tempted to grub most of it out and go with roses as they seem happiest, I'd welcome opinions. Very little that is evergreen seems to like it there!
Last edited: 07 May 2017 22:55:41
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I have a bed like that. Roses love it. Some grasses, verbena bonarensis, peony, pulmonaria and pittosporum do well there too and cosmos in the summer..
Oh the grasses do well, usually from the lawn invading it as fast as I can dig it out!
Seriously tho, I though peony were fussy sods? I do have a couple elsewhere in the garden and they seem to be well.
To be honest, it probably would do better elsewhere, but it does ok. It's the old fashioned fuchsia-coloured one.
Forget me nots. Mine have exploded this year in a corner of a damp bed. My red robin photinia seem to like it too. The cottage style works best for this I think...good luck.
I have a similar spot in terms of sun. It never floods in winter but the soil is essentially heavy clay so it can get quite wet and sticky during the winter. It bakes hard in the summer and a lot stuff looks quite scruffy quite quickly.
Good doers in my bed have been shrub roses, hardy geraniums (esp. Rozanne and Mrs Kendall Clark), an apple tree and (so far - touch wood - only been in 3 years) a couple of euonymus - Duc d'Anjou and a green and white one labelled Silver Queen - but I'm not convinced it is.
A Group 3 Viticella clematis (Ville de Lyon I think) is positively rampant but Princess Diana never thrived and died after season 2. The delphiniums seem to be reasonably happy and primulas and brunnera are doing well under the apple tree.
Do the religious need special kitchens..?
Oh and I didn't mention that previously that bed managed the impossible. It killed a Clematis Montana...
It's ok Steve - mine killed a buddleia
- and a holly.
That's nothing Steve - I once killed a Russian Vine!
I have a grass that's not widely grown,although I remember Mr Titchmarsh having one and singing it's praises. Spartina - it grows in coastal areas and is happy in drought or wet, as it will withstand tidal currents etc. It gets to about a metre or slightly more, and forms a big arching stand. Green edged in gold. Not evergreen, but could be useful for your site. Some of the Carexes will be fine, Hackenochloas and Hellebores. Those hardy fuchsias might be ok too. Potentillas will be fine, and Astilbes.
I wouldn't grow peonies there if it gets boggy in winter - the dark pink one is less fussy than the other, more fussy ones though.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...