The Neglected Garden
Now is a good time to take on the neglected garden. Without anyone to referee, all gardens eventually descend into anarchy, a vegetative version of Lord of the Flies. If you have recently moved house, or you have simply been too busy to get into the garden, autumn is a good time to pull on the wellies and gloves, and get busy.
Have a good look at your garden from all angles – if you are dissatisfied with your garden, what offends the eye? It’s worth taking some digital photographs of the garden and looking at them dispassionately from the comfort of a warm room. If your garden is just too familiar, it may help to flip the photo round to make a mirror image, and suddenly you will see it through fresh eyes.
• Does the overgrown Leylandii hedge, (now ten feet wide and goodness knows how high, with dry bare soil beneath and nothing growing within a couple of feet from its branches) have to go?
• Perhaps the flower beds have been taken over by one or two rampant perennials which enjoy the conditions just a little too much and which have crowded out everything else.
• Maybe you realise that all your plants are all perennial or deciduous, and that once the autumn colour is gone the garden becomes a study in beige brown and black.
Bite the bullet
Now is the time to bite the bullet and take out that overgrown conifer hedge, replacing it with Beech or Hornbeam, or, if you prefer evergreen, Box, Yew, Holly or Portuguese Laurel. Remember that clipped Beech and Hornbeam, although deciduous, keep their tan brown leaves over the winter so they can still afford good privacy in the winter months.
Specialist hedging nurseries can supply anything from low-cost bare-root hedge plants to instant full size clipped hedges, if your budget can take it.
Another space-making alternative is to replace the hedge with a fence or trellis panels onto which you can train climbers such as climbing roses and fast growing Clematis.
Blow the whistle on bully-boy perennials
The flower beds now need the attention of a referee – get rid of the weeds first, then dig up and split large clumps of perennials into several pieces. Replant one, or space the pieces throughout the beds to give some rhythm to the planting.
If you have some empty spaces add new plants which will harmonise with the existing planting – this is a good time to plant, allowing new arrivals to get their roots down before the winter, which will give them a head start next spring.
Inject some winter green, yellow or silver
The traditionalist might like to insert clipped Box balls on the corners of the beds, either side of a bench or doorway, or at regular intervals within a perennial planting.
The contemporary gardener might choose Bamboo, Fatsia japonica or the low growing Lonicera pileata. Other small evergreens include Skimmia japonica, Sarcococca confusa, and the herbs Rosemary and Sage.
Easy large evergreen shrubs are the fragrant Elaeagnus ebbingei, the yellow-variegated Elaeagnus pungens maculata, and the winter flowering Viburnum tinus Gwenllian. They can be cut back annually to make an informal hedge (great for flower arrangements).
Autumn leaf colour, berries, architectural seed-heads, grasses, and coloured stems are other ways to create interest in the garden at this time of year – next month I will discuss a selection of my top favourites which you can put in over the winter to create a stunning display in 12 months time.
Nurseries
Bare-root hedging www.glebe-farm-hedging.co.uk www.hedgesdirect.co.uk
Instant Hedging www.pracbrown.co.uk www.instahedge.co.uk
Local nurseries:
For a free leaflet listing nurseries in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire send a loose stamp and your address to:
Julie Ritchie, Hoo House Nursery, Gloucester Rd, Tewkesbury, GL20 7DA
or call in between 10 am – 5 pm Mon – Sat, 11 am – 5 pm Sun.